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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29161368">Fueled with good intent</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/josephides/pseuds/josephides'>josephides</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Alpha and Omega - Patricia Briggs</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Family, Magic, More from Leah's tragic past</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 00:13:43</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>66,181</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29161368</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/josephides/pseuds/josephides</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Her brother had been mostly absent in her life – so much so that she would regularly, genuinely forget him – and yet he always seemed to know where she was. Every dozen years or so, the occasional letter or postcard would find its way into her belongings. Oh, not in anything so mundane as a postbox or on her doorstep. No, she would open a book one day and there would be a print of Brighton Beach and her brother’s near-illegible scrawl. It was never anything particularly erudite. I like what you’ve done with the yard, he’d write. Or, I hope you are watching West Wing.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Bran Cornick/Leah Cornick</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>152</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Fueled with good intent</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Oh, boy, I really had to work to get this out before the next book came out. I worry that whatever three words PB dedicates to Leah might potentially kibosh any entirely improbably backstories I could come up with. I do so like to be CURRENT. Ah, well.</p><p>ps. This is pretty smutty. Note the explicit tag.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Leah met her brother in the parking lot of the mall. Or rather, he met her, climbing into her passenger seat with a brown paper bag, a soda in a take-out cup and the smell of grease.</p><p>“Must you eat that in my car,” Leah said of his Five Guys, her top lip curling in revulsion. These were the first words she’d spoken to him face to face in nearly three years and he didn’t bat an eyelid.</p><p>“Why? You hungry?” He slurped on his straw and then put the cup in the cup holder. </p><p>“Not for <em>that.</em>” She wrinkled her nose. Fast food. A crime of the Twentieth Century.</p><p>“Are you sure?” Oliver shook the bag, enticingly, wafting the smell of potatoes and grilled meat towards her. “There are plenty of fries, as you Americans call them.”</p><p>“You were born here, too,” she muttered, angling the rear view mirror so she could see in her blind spot better.</p><p>“There weren’t any <em>fries</em> when I was born here. And technically <em>you</em> weren’t. Born here, that is.” He glanced in the rear view mirror himself. “What’s wrong?”</p><p>Leah exhaled and told him about the last few weeks, an unburdening she couldn’t deny that she had been looking forward to. Oliver listened, making the odd grunting noise of sympathy. He tucked the paper napkin into his plaid shirt and then proceeded to eat his enormous burger in small, neat bites.</p><p>As she talked, she studied her brother. He didn’t look demonstrably different from when she had seen him last – the same unruly dark blonde hair as she, the same blue eyes. He was sporting some designer stubble and had a new tattoo peaking out from his neckline, the ink fresh enough that she could smell it. It would fade soon; they always did.</p><p>When Leah had finished her tale of woe, he grunted one more time and licked sauce from his thumb. “I know of them. The Hardesty witches. <em>Hardolfsty</em>,” he murmured, as if to himself. “A very, very old family. I had not expected to hear their name again.”</p><p>Oliver fell silent then and stared out of the window. Leah let him. Not for the first time, she reflected that she had mated and married a man who also frequently lost himself to the past in the same dreamy way. She would catch Bran a dozen times a day staring into the distance like her brother was doing and she had long learnt not to interrupt. Watching Bran’s face as he zeroed in to the present was disturbing, particularly when that present involved Leah. She didn’t like to imagine his disappointment. </p><p>“Do you want me to get you out?” Oliver asked suddenly, as he always did.</p><p>Leah sighed and squeezed her hands on the wheel of her expensive car. She had worn her wedding rings today, as she always did when she went ‘shopping’. Wedding rings made her look older and some of the sales staff in the boutiques she visited focused in on the size of the diamonds and sapphires that Leah had – <em>naturally</em> – bought herself and upped their level of service accordingly.</p><p>“No. I love him,” she said, simply. Leah could no longer imagine a life without him. She didn’t want to.</p><p>Oliver grunted. “I know that. I just don’t like to see you heartbroken.”</p><p>“I’m not heartbroken,” she scoffed.</p><p>“Are you not?”</p><p>Leah twisted up her face as she tried to sort through it. Heartbroken sounded so dramatic. Yes, Bran had hurt her. But he had hurt her so often it was— <em>it was nothing</em>, she thought. It didn’t feel any worse than the other times. Fresher, perhaps. She had cried, when she had been alone in the shower the morning after he had returned. That had been shameful but he hadn’t been there to see it, no one had.</p><p>Heartbroken? No. Not her.</p><p>Her brother put away most of the detritus of his meal. “Here, have a fry,” he suggested, shuffling a little paper cup at her. “I can hear your stomach rumbling and I know better than to sit in an enclosed space with a hungry werewolf.”</p><p>Leah gave in and took one. “What do you know about the Hardesty witches, then?” she asked, knowing any knowledge she gleaned from him she would have to keep to herself.</p><p>“Old Yorkshire family. Dark witches. Black witches, you would call them. Blood magic. Fairly prolific, which they had to be since that breed of witch liked to sacrifice their young to grow more powerful. I had wondered where they had gone.”</p><p>“Gone? Oh, you mean, left Britain.”</p><p>He nodded. “And Europe entirely. Must have been around the Sixteenth Century?”</p><p>“Well, they’re here all right. They own property and land. They want power and… slaves,” she said, thinking of the collar. She took another few fries; they weren’t so bad. They actually tasted of potato, for one.</p><p>Oliver drew in a deep breath and blew it out. “They’re a dangerous lot to have their attentions on you. Are you sure you’re safe?”</p><p>She waved a fry around. “I’m married to the most powerful werewolf in the world.”</p><p>Her brother smirked. “I know that.” Oliver narrowed his eyes at her, his blue gaze penetrating, as if he was trying to see through her. “What about the other thing? How’s that?”</p><p>Nerves blossomed, the way they did whenever they talked about this subject. As a distraction, Leah wiped her fingers on one of the paper napkins that had fallen between them. “It’s fine. I’m still doing what you suggested. Putting it into the house.”</p><p>“Good. Is it getting better? Worse?”</p><p>She gave him a baffled look, annoyed at the void of knowledge between them. “How would I tell that?” she demanded.</p><p>Oliver shook his head. “Our father was a sexist pig,” he sighed, an oft repeated sentiment from him. “I cannot believe— you should be able to feel it. It should <em>feel</em> different. The difference between water and syrup. Or, it might take longer for you to drain it.”</p><p>“I try not to notice,” she muttered, thinking he had no idea how hard it was to find time when she was alone to <em>drain</em> the useless energy she was creating from her body. That she had to do it several times a day, listening out for anyone who might be coming and werewolves were <em>stealthy</em>. Her husband – her <em>witch-born husband</em> – was perilously observant. Leah wasn’t about to stand there assessing how it felt; she just wanted it <em>done</em>.</p><p>“All right.” He smiled at her; it was kind. “That house will be very strong, if you’ve been fortifying it every week for a decade.”</p><p>“Every week?” Leah clarified, eyes widening in alarm.</p><p>Oliver’s face seemed to soften. “Even if it’s just every month.”</p><p>“Every day, Oliver. Every <em>day</em>.”</p><p>“Hell.” He closed his eyes, thumping it back against the seat. “Then it’s very strong indeed.”</p><p>*</p><p>Meetings with her brother, infrequent as they were, always left her feeling a little blue. She couldn’t miss him – he had been but a visitor in her life since she had been born – but he was her only family and increasingly she felt like she could do with some support.</p><p>Any support, really.</p><p>It had been a weird day without the rare addition of her brother. Just after 9 that morning she’d had a phone call from the fertility clinic she’d used two years before. Hearing the name of the clinic on the phone had been a painful reminder of a brief moment in her marriage where she’d thought… oh, such a ridiculous thought. It was mortifying to think of it.</p><p>She’d thought things had been going in a better direction. With her and Bran. Thought that they had found some semblance of balance after a rocky few decades. Probably it had been Anna’s talk about babies and her enthusiasm for the subject that had made Leah think of it, after genuinely putting aside such tender thoughts for so long. That with medical science being what it was now, the possibility that if they found a surrogate maybe they could—</p><p>No matter. The clinic had called with bad news. A liquid nitrogen failure meant that the eggs she had frozen were in all likelihood damaged and no longer viable. They couldn’t express enough their sadness for her loss and Leah had listened to them lament with half an ear. Insurance would pay for another round if she wanted to, she was still young, they said. She could try again. Brusquely, Leah had said she would think about it but she knew it was a non-starter. The moment had passed and she had known that, maybe had always known that. In the back of her mind these last two years, she had already been mourning the end of that wistful, preposterous dream that somehow Bran might consent to have a child with her. That it would even be something he would want.</p><p>She knew differently now.</p><p>Leah sat in the drive of her home of more than eighty years and stared at the side porch. The Christmas wreath was up, had been since the day after yet another morose Thanksgiving, most of which her husband had spent in his office working. She had put lights in the bay trees – warm white, of course – but the Christmas tree itself she didn’t organize until the first weekend in December. This year, as she had done since she had arrived in Aspen Creek, Kara was coming with her to pick it out. This was an Aspen Creek Christmas tradition that Kara apparently very much enjoyed – but she would always go back to her parents for the actual holiday. Leah would then suffer a Cornick family Christmas alone. And as a special treat, it was the <em>full</em> Cornick family; both sons and their wives would be in attendance.</p><p>She was dreading it.</p><p>Leah was just pulling her shopping from the trunk when she heard Bran’s truck drive up behind her. Having a mate, a mate like Bran, meant she was in a constant state of awareness of him – if they were far apart, it was a mere prickle. Close up, she could feel him under her skin. It had taken her years to get used to it.</p><p>“Good haul?” he asked her lightly, boots crunching through the dusting of fresh snow on their drive.</p><p>Bran disapproved of her shopping. He thought there were more valuable pursuits than spending money. Never mind that he spent several thousand dollars on books each year, that was different. That was <em>knowledge</em> and that made him better than her. It was an argument they’d had many times, almost since the moment they had mated. He had called her profligate, a word she had been forced to ask someone afterwards for its meaning. She had never forgotten it.</p><p>But now it was Christmas and she wasn’t buying for herself, which ceased to become <em>profligate</em> and instead became a gesture of goodwill and affection. It was the only time he was interested.</p><p>“I’ve done Kara and part of Anna’s presents,” Leah said. For Kara, she had bought another gold charm for the bracelet she had bought her last year, some perfume and a pair of designer jeans she knew Kara loved. For Anna – who was difficult to buy for, being the kind of woman Bran ultimately understood better – she had picked up a new riding helmet. Bran would ‘add’ to this present with likely a more thoughtful gift but she had done her best. </p><p>Leah left the presents on the eight-seater dining table in their big, open-plan living area so that he could go through them. She drank a pint of water in the kitchen. Those fries had been salty. “I like the charm,” he called to her. “And the riding hat was an inspired choice.”</p><p>“I asked Charles,” she replied, honestly. It had been one of their less awkward conversations. The only element Leah could claim to have put her stamp on was the color – it was a pretty, forget-me-not blue which she thought would bring out the gold in Anna’s whisky-brown hair.</p><p>He snorted as he came into the kitchen. “As I said, inspired. Did you eat?”</p><p>“Five Guys.”</p><p>Knowing her tastes, Bran was briefly perplexed. “Really?”</p><p>“It’s quite good. For fast food. I was hungry.” Leah shrugged and rinsed the glass. Whilst it wasn’t a lie, the less she talked about it the better, so she changed the subject. “What did Asil say?”</p><p>“He was annoyed and pleased.”</p><p>“Did he say ‘yes’, though?”</p><p>“He said he’d think about it.”</p><p>Now <em>she</em> was annoyed. “He said he’d think about being the Marrok’s Third,” she elaborated with disbelief.</p><p>Bran smiled, as if he found this concept amusing. “He took great delight in saying so.”</p><p>Leah was less amused. If it had been her, she would have told him to go hang and he could continue being <em>unofficially</em> their Third without the salary and kudos that came with it. But old wolves didn’t care about money and Asil thought highly enough of himself as it was.</p><p>“I think I preferred it when he asked to be killed each week,” she muttered, taking the beef from the refrigerator so it could come to room temperature. She was making a simple pot roast for dinner, as it was just the two of them. Bran liked basic, home-comfort cooking and this recipe, one she had been doing for decades, was one of his favorites.</p><p>Bran huffed out his reluctant amusement at this statement. “I will be back to peel the potatoes in a few minutes,” he said, wandering from the room.</p><p>*</p><p>There were eight focus areas in the house, carefully selected so that if she was ‘discovered’ there was a strong possibility that no one would notice anything strange was going on.</p><p>There was a good one in the kitchen, just in front of the stove. When Leah had the kitchen remodeled, she had carved the symbols Oliver had given her onto the base of several of the tiles when they had been delivered to the house. Two had been laid, side by side, right on the spot where Leah most often stood in bare feet, stirring a pot. There was another in front of the refrigerator, but it didn’t work so well because she had to keep the door open otherwise it genuinely looked peculiar and the latest model started beeping frantically as the temperature rose.</p><p>She’d awkwardly scratched the symbol under the counter in the laundry, which was less effective because she had to touch a hand to it all the time and folding clothes one-handed was a boring task. There was another in the garage under the chest freezer, which had involved a chisel and, again, really only worked if she had the freezer open for more than five minutes.</p><p>Upstairs, in her walk-in, she had another. That had been more difficult to do as she’d had to pull up a floorboard and ever since that one floorboard had creaked in a nerve wracking way. She’d covered it with a rug, terrified that Bran would get it in his head to investigate, maybe do a bit of DIY, which he sometimes did.</p><p>She debated between putting one in her bathroom but decided against it, instead scratched the symbols on the armchair in her bedroom. It was often the place she naturally curled up to read in the afternoon, so it was a logical place and very often private. No one but Bran – occasionally Kara – came into her bedroom.    </p><p>The best one was the coffee table in the living area. Frequently, she’d sit with her feet on the table watch a whole movie, or read a magazine, and the energy that her body generated of its own accord drained from her, down in the bones of the house.</p><p>Handily, it also sat underneath a chandelier that Leah cleaned once a week. It was a delicate business and required her to take down each of the individual crystal drops and dust them. It took nearly an hour and the entire time she did it, her feet connecting with the sturdy oak beneath, she felt increasingly relaxed.</p><p>So, as the pot roast cooked, she occupied herself with this chore, dust cloth in one hand, humming to herself and letting her thoughts bounce from Christmas decorations, to Oliver, to what she could possibly get for Sam and Ariana, to the frenetic sense of the energy that plagued her leaving her body. She would be calmer, after.    </p><p>Leah was so wrapped up in this, the tug of energy flowing from the tips of her fingers, down through her body, out through the soles of her feet that when Bran cleared his throat, she nearly tossed herself headfirst into the couch.</p><p>“The timer is going off,” he said, standing behind the couch.</p><p>Leah stared at him, heart pounding as if she had been caught. “Okay?” It took a moment for her brain to connect with the noise. “Oh. Can you – stick a knife in the roast? See if it’s done? Oh – and put the potatoes on? No, I can do that—”</p><p>“It’s fine. I can do that.” He smiled vaguely, waved a hand at her and headed to the kitchen. “Stay, I know you love that chore.”</p><p>She grimaced guiltily at his back, forgetting entirely that there was a big mirror over their mantelpiece. To her absolute horror, Bran made eye contact with her and she felt her expression freeze on her face.</p><p>He turned to give her an odd look but – perhaps in a demonstration of how little interest he had in her – said nothing and went to deal with their dinner.</p><p>*</p><p>Unusually, rather than Montana being a stopping point just to see her, Oliver had ‘work’ in Billings which meant that he would – as he put it – be around for a few weeks. She had asked him what this ‘work’ entailed and he had said <em>stuff</em> which was annoying but not desperately unusual. He was not the first man in her life to be evasive and it wasn’t as if she shared the minute detail of what went on in her life with him.</p><p>Then he’d suggested she might want to spread her largesse around Aspen Creek.</p><p>“What does that mean?” Leah had demanded, finishing up his fries.</p><p>“Just apply the same method you’re using for your house to other places in that backwards little town of yours.”</p><p>She glared at him. “It’s not <em>backwards</em>.”</p><p>Oliver waved a hand. The ring their father had given him twinkled darkly on his little finger. “You know what I mean.”</p><p>“Other people’s houses? Might be tricky.” She imagined, for a moment, sidling up to Asil’s house and scratching a symbol onto the wood paneling of his hothouse. He’d probably kill her. </p><p>“No, I want you to think bigger. Land. Borders. I presume your wolfy husband has a territory boundary?”</p><p>Leah ignored the sheer gall of him to refer to her mate as ‘wolfy’. “His territory is the whole of North America. There isn’t a <em>boundary</em>.”</p><p>But of course there was. Bran had a domestic pack territory. In much the same way as the US was made up of states, it was also made up with pack territories and Aspen Creek – and the surrounding area – was Bran’s. Some might go so far as to say that all of Montana was his, certainly the vampires thought so and stayed clear, but truthfully the territory that he was most magically connected to was the approximate twenty square miles of mountain and forest around their home. </p><p>Over the next few days, Leah set herself the task of plotting out where she would ‘focus’ her energy. Oliver’s theory was that if she expanded her remit to include more land, she might drain herself more. “At least get you down to something more manageable. A monthly rather than daily occurrence,” he said. “Meanwhile, I’ll have a think about what else can be done with this one-way energy of yours.” He twisted the ring on his finger around and followed her eyes to it. “Yes. Something like this.”</p><p>“Father said it wouldn’t work for me.”</p><p>“Father was a—”</p><p>“—sexist pig, yes, I know.”</p><p>It wasn’t as easy as just finding the boundary – a nebulous thing in the first place. She was forced to drive all over the place with a GPS tracker and pacing until she felt the boundary herself using the gift of the mating bond – she then also had to <em>measure it</em>, accurately, and make sure her focus points were mathematically aligned to the golden ratio. Which was hard. Too hard for Leah, who ended up taking a picture of the map with her cell phone, the boundary carefully drawn in pencil, and sending it to the email address she had for Oliver with the headline <em>Help me.</em> She had no cell phone signal so knew that he would only get it when she drove home.</p><p>However, Oliver called her, seconds later, and she answered. “I feel like your husband would have considered that to be confidential information.”</p><p>“How come you can call me?” Leah looked at her phone. There were still no bars.</p><p>“Mostly belief, I believe. I try not to think about it. If I were you, I would divide up the land into parcels and put the focus in the middle of each parcel. So, two parcels that are one square meter each, then a two square meter parcel, three, five, eight. You get my drift.”</p><p>Leah was tempted to groan. “I—this is going to take a while.”</p><p>“It doesn’t need to be absolutely accurate. The intention is mostly everything. I’ll send you a link to a tool I use online. If you have the co-ordinates, you’ll have an easier job of it. Though, I’d probably use your browser in incognito mode,” he said thoughtfully.</p><p>She climbed into her car. “What’s incognito mode?”</p><p>“It’s a private mode. Mostly people use it for watching porn. Ask your husband. Though, do werewolves watch porn?”</p><p>“I <em>beg</em> your pardon?”</p><p>“Yes, you’re probably right, I shouldn’t think the King of the werewolves watches porn. Probably beneath him.”</p><p>Leah made a disgusted noise and hung up on him. Porn. Good grief. It would never have ever crossed her <em>mind</em> that Bran might watch porn online. She’d seen some once, in a hotel in Switzerland - by accident - quite a few years ago now, back when Bran had sent her on jobs for him. It had neither been arousing or realistic.</p><p>“You don’t regularly watch porn, do you?” she asked Bran as they were cooking dinner that night. Oliver had sent her a link to the tool he had suggested and she was halfway through mapping Bran’s territory using it. It was a time consuming business.</p><p>At her question, Bran abruptly sucked in air and then proceeded to choke in the most extraordinary way, coughing and spluttering. “What?” he wheezed, wiping his eyes with his sleeves. “Damn.” He flipped on the faucet to pour himself a glass of water.</p><p>She stared at him. She’d never seen him react like that. “I can’t tell if that was a shocked <em>no</em> or an equally shocked <em>yes</em>.”</p><p>“<em>No,” </em>Bran said firmly, and truthfully, gulping down the glass of water quickly. His face was quite flushed. “Whatever made you ask that?”</p><p>“I read something today, that’s all.” She had Googled incognito mode, so she could find out how to do it, and sure enough many articles had referenced its usefulness for illicit activities, including watching porn on a shared computer. It was only in the last year that Leah had got her own laptop. Before that she had shared Bran’s – which had made her think of it. “So, never?”</p><p>At this, Bran hesitated. He didn’t like to lie.  </p><p>“Really?” she said, intrigued and then suddenly annoyed. She put down the spatula forcefully. “<em>Really</em>.”</p><p>“More out of curiosity than anything else. Not because of anything <em>lacking</em> if that’s what your irritation is about.”</p><p>Leah’s lip curled. “I see.” She was still annoyed and, yes, because of the implication that something was <em>lacking</em>. She was always <em>lacking</em>, wasn’t she?</p><p>As Leah watched, her mate made the switch from his more usual partner-like behavior to the Bran she really only saw in the bedroom. She supposed some might have called it flirtatious, the way his head suddenly angled slightly to the side and his eyelids half lowered as he looked at her. She knew what it was in truth. It was manipulation. He used sex to manipulate her and she – and her wolf –  always gave in to him.</p><p>He prowled towards her and resolutely, Leah turned back to the stove, picking up the spatula and prodding the chicken on the griddle, gritting her teeth with annoyance.</p><p>Bran sidled up behind her, his hands on her hips, and rubbed the side of his face against hers. Her body curled towards him instinctively, the permanent awareness that she had for him rising to the surface, making her breasts feel heavy and a throbbing beat start between her legs. With unwavering focus, Bran slid a hand down her front, tapped his fingers just over that beat at the apex of her thighs, and with his other hand he turned off the gas at the stove.</p><p>*</p><p>It took Leah several days to complete her task, partially because it wasn’t something she could devote all her time to. She did have other more pressing responsibilities to her pack.</p><p>Eventually, after a frustrating few hours of trying to get to grips with the online tool, she sent her proposed ‘parceling’ of Bran’s territory to Oliver. He sent back a tweak. <em>Put your house in the middle of the first one square mile</em>, he told her. This took more than two hours. Once she had done that, he didn’t like the creek running through the other square mile. <em>It’ll weaken it. Bodies of water always disrupt. It needs to go in a larger section. </em>Once she had rejigged <em>that</em>, Oliver called her. “Free to talk?”</p><p>Bran was out. “It’s fine.”</p><p>“Look, the idea is that you can <em>charge</em> the whole lot in one go, just by loading up your house,” he said, as if this was all perfectly logical and Leah wasn’t just doing what she was told. “After the first time.”</p><p>“Uh-huh,” she said, staring at her laptop screen, waiting for illumination to land.</p><p>“So you need the borders of each to touch in order. One, one, two, three, five, eight. You can’t have that two where you’ve put it, bordered by the five and the eight.”</p><p>She saw it now. She sighed and dropped her head back, mouth slack, and stared resentfully at her ceiling. “This is so boring.”</p><p>“I mean, it’s <em>not</em>, it’s fascinating, but you didn’t spend fifty years studying magical theory.”</p><p>“No. Because I was a girl and <em>too stupid</em>. Is there anything <em>else</em> I should know?” she asked testily, feeling as if her brother was just moving the hurdles and she would never get this done.</p><p>There wasn’t. On screen, Leah moved the pieces around and re-sent it, finally getting her brother’s go-ahead just in time for her to hear Bran’s pick-up draw up outside the house. He was home early. She closed her laptop. She wouldn’t be able to start ‘charging’, as Oliver put it, until Sunday, as she and Kara were going to get the tree tomorrow and that was almost a whole day event.</p><p>Voices downstairs indicated Bran wasn’t alone. She listened for a moment and then his office door closed. <em>Leah,</em> his strange, mental-only voice told her,<em> your pizza is in the kitchen</em>.</p><p>Friday night. Pizza night. And apparently she would be eating alone as Bran had a guest. She trotted downstairs to see that, sure enough, her usual pizza was sitting on the counter, along with a chilled can of coke and some garlic bread. He’d even got a plate out for her. She wondered who was in Bran’s office with him and if it was something she should be concerned about.</p><p>He would tell her if it was. She would just have to be patient.</p><p>Not having her husband’s company, Leah was free to watch TV whilst she ate, which meant she could put her bare feet up on the coffee table and multitask. She cued up a movie on Netflix, fully absorbing herself in a plot that made very little sense and enjoyed herself immensely, laughing out loud at the most ridiculous points and grinning at the violence.</p><p>By the time Bran came out of his office, both the pizza and the garlic bread were nothing but smears on the plate and Leah was lying on her side, half asleep. She lifted her head to watch as he escorted a stranger through their house, not pausing to introduce her, even though the stranger turned to look at her. Moments after, she heard the truck start. Bran was driving him somewhere.</p><p>Curious – it was a little odd even for Bran – she went to his office herself. He’d left the door open, which she took for an invitation. There were two pizza boxes, so they’d eaten. Their guest’s was a regular sized pizza, which probably meant he wasn’t a werewolf, though that was purely supposition on her behalf. She sniffed the air. No, not a werewolf, she thought.</p><p>She tidied the boxes away as her excuse for being in his office and then found the recycling was overflowing because <em>someone was recycling the wrong things.</em> This led to a frustrating few minutes of her breaking down cardboard and taking out the glass and plastic and putting them into the <em>right</em> trash cans. “Honestly,” she muttered. She had written perfectly simple instructions and stuck them to the lids of the trash cans and yet still they were getting it wrong. Paper, hard plastic, glass – how was that so hard?  </p><p>“It’s not me,” Bran said, returning to find her loading up the dishwasher with dirty glass jars that had been placed in the recycling despite her huge, highlighter-yellow CLEAN GLASS ONLY note.</p><p>“I know it’s not,” she said through gritted teeth. “I’m the only one who cares about it, though.”</p><p>“That’s true. I’m sorry. I shall try to care more about it,” he added, as if this thought hadn’t ever occurred to him. “I know it’s important to you.”</p><p>If Bran chose to care, that meant the pack would mind him. Whereas they just humored her, despite knowing only too well that <em>they</em> were long-lived and this was the only planet they had.</p><p>She decided to change the subject, slamming the dishwasher closed and setting it on a quick-wash program. “Who was he?”</p><p>“A fantasist, mostly.” Bran all but chuckled, his words and face imbued with his particular sense of the ridiculous.</p><p>“A what?”</p><p>Bran continued to smile, shaking his head slightly. “Wellesley sent him to me. He thought him ‘interesting but probably quite mad’ and wondered if I might glean which. He also claims he hunts witches. Wizards. Sorcerers,” he said, as if he was letting Leah in to a big secret.</p><p>Leah felt her mouth open and close of its own volition. She forced herself to get a grip. “I— sorcerers?” she repeated, her voice sounding perilously squeaky.</p><p>Her mate dismissed this with a wave of his hand. “He’s just a human with a crazy theory. I suspect he has a mental illness.”</p><p>Leah busied herself with her back to her husband, grabbing a new cleaning cloth from under the sink, tossing the soiled one into the little basket on the windowsill she filled until there were enough to justify a wash. “Oh.”</p><p>“I told him I was writing a book and gave him some money to thank him for his ‘information’. He has a truly ridiculous online forum – if you’re interested.” She glanced at him, in case he was implying that she might have reason to be, but he was going through the fruit bowl, testing the pears for ripeness</p><p>“So he’s, what, some kind of conspiracist?”</p><p>“Yes. Mostly based on the fact that if werewolves and fae are real, why not other creatures of legend? Admittedly he <em>is</em> right about witches – but when I asked about vampires, he dismissed them. The living dead were apparently a step too far for him.”</p><p>She nodded. It was all she could do. She tidied the cleaning components in the containers by the sink. “But he’s right about witches.”</p><p>“In that they exist. Not in their methods.” Bran got a knife out to slice off pieces of his chosen fruit. “He told me about a spell he’d seen a witch do that could turn water into whiskey.”</p><p>Leah raised her eyebrows at him. Unlike her husband, she had no intimate knowledge of the ways of working of witches. That was very much his arena. Bran shook his head at her unsaid question. “Not possible. Certainly not without an act of God.” He popped some pear into his mouth. “Wizards… have wands.” Bran snickered, as this wasn’t true. She did know that. “And sorcerers, this is the best bit, guess what sorcerers can do?”</p><p>She was not enjoying this game. “I don’t know, Bran. What can sorcerers do?”</p><p>“According to ‘Fox Anderson',” this was said with inverted commas, clearly not a name Bran believed in, “they can <em>time travel</em>.”</p><p>Leah’s grimace was real. “Goodness,” she said faintly.</p><p>“I know. If it’s any consolation apparently there aren’t <em>that many</em> sorcerers out there.” Her husband waggled his eyebrows and then wandered off with his pear, as if she couldn’t possibly have a response to that.</p><p>*</p><p>Bran – or Fox Anderson – was right, in part. There weren’t that many sorcerers out there. Indeed, as far as she knew, the only sorcerers left were what remained of her family. Her brother and, somewhere, perhaps dead or perhaps simply buried back in time, her father.</p><p>Leah had been born in Britain in 1604 but she had been <em>raised </em>in what would become Massachusetts in the 1790s. The journey between 1604 and the 18<sup>th</sup> Century had taken place when she was six weeks old so she had no memory of it. It was the first and last time she would ‘time travel’ in her life, given her father had been bedridden for nearly four months afterwards. Bringing a dud of a life-form to his then present had been almost too much for him.</p><p>He’d had cause to regret it, of course. As he told her many times through her childhood, she hadn’t been worth it. He had of course been expecting a boy. A second son to carry the vanishingly rare sorcerer gene. Instead from this experiment, he’d had a useless girl. A pretty little doll who required caring for and raising – none of which he intended to do himself, not when there was no payoff at the end.</p><p>Leah had often wondered why he had bothered to bring her back home with him. Why not leave her with her mother and her mother’s family, whoever they were? She had often wondered what would have happened if he’d done that. She would never have become a werewolf. Never have met Bran. Never lived this life that occasionally so troubled her now. Perhaps she would have married, had children. Died of a wasting disease or in her bed, surrounded by a loving family.</p><p>She spent the day with Kara, picking out their tree for the main living area and then a smaller one for her own bedroom as Leah liked to lie in bed and watch the lights twinkle at night. If she noticed that Leah was distracted, Kara didn’t mention it – she chatted away about school, about her plans for the Christmas vacation as she was shuffled between divorced parents. Full Moon fell on the 30<sup>th</sup> and she would be back in Aspen Creek by then so she was free from all her ‘werewolf’ obligations. She would, Leah knew, pretend to be a normal teenager whilst she was home. It was what her parents liked.</p><p>They drove back, the trees secured in the back of Leah’s pick-up, Kara singing along to Christmas songs and periodically taking selfies of herself and Leah, laughing about the expressions Leah pulled. </p><p>Bran whistled when he saw the size of the tree for the living area. “Couldn’t get a bigger one, could you?” he teased, mostly aiming this teasing at Kara who had indeed been responsible for the size.</p><p>“You have tall ceilings,” Kara exclaimed, pink cheeked and beaming. Like many, she held no fear for Bran – though Kara also didn’t fear Asil and Charles. Leah was of the belief that this would run her into trouble one day. “It would be a <em>waste</em>.”</p><p>He helped Kara carry it inside, going around the back through the bi-fold doors that led from their living area to the decking. Leah hefted her smaller tree over her shoulder, listening to Kara tell him about the trees they had dismissed for being wussy and how her dad used to take her to pick out their tree when she was a kid but their house had never been big enough for the kinds of trees that appealed to Kara. Bran was murmuring his responses, too low for her to hear, but it was enough to make Leah smile.</p><p>She wished, like she always did, that she had been able to convince Bran to let Kara live with them permanently. Having a loving child in the house would have changed the dynamic of their home. No doubt why Bran hadn’t wanted to do it, as well as the perfectly rational argument that being part of Bran’s family automatically put you in danger.</p><p>Still. She wished for it. Particularly in moments like this.</p><p>Leah had already set up the stand in her bedroom so for the time being she simply slotted the tree into place and made sure it was secure. She would decorate it later, by herself. Then she joined Kara, who had similarly secured the big tree. Kara was going through the box of lights, which Leah had wound up neatly the previous year and carefully labelled – <em>outdoor</em>, <em>indoor</em> – because for years she had been the one to do this alone and nothing was more frustrating than untangling fairy lights.</p><p>Bran emerged from the kitchen with some scissors to detach the netting from the tree. <em>Snip, snip</em>, they went, as he warily approached the tree.</p><p>“Are you staying?” she asked, in some surprise.</p><p>“I thought I might.” He looked up. “Step-ladder or do you want to climb me?”</p><p>This was a stupid question. She grinned at him and he responded in kind, which gave her a particularly warm feeling. With old familiarity, Leah placed her hands on her husband’s shoulders, standing behind him. “On three,” Bran said, holding out the scissors for Kara to take. “One, two, three.”</p><p>She pushed off him with a jump, propelled by her own considerable strength, and he half-crouched and reached up to catch her. She landed on his shoulders with an ‘oomph’ and then a laugh. “Haven’t done that in a while,” Leah laughed, steadying herself with her hands on his head.</p><p>“Not since our days in the circus,” he replied, dead-pan, adjusting her thighs slightly before straightening easily himself.</p><p>Kara’s head jerked towards them. “Circus?”</p><p>“Scissors please,” Leah requested, hand down, fingers wriggling.</p><p>“Seriously. A circus? Or is this one of your little jokes?”</p><p>Starting from the top, Leah carefully snipped the netting so that the fronds of the Christmas tree slowly unfurled whilst beneath her Bran spun an elaborate – and entirely fictional – story of how he and Leah had once belonged to Vargas’s big top circus for one summer in the 70s. She managed, just, to keep a straight face but periodically squeezed her thighs warningly when Bran started to verge into vaudeville.</p><p>Kara wavered between deep suspicion and genuine delight. If this went the way it usually did, she would spend the next couple of days interrogating other members of the pack, who would similarly confirm everything Bran was saying until she finally smelled the lie. Everyone enjoyed it. Hazing, Anna called it. They’d done something similar to her.</p><p>“I notice Leah has been <em>very</em> quiet on this topic,” Kara said, narrowing her eyes at Leah. </p><p>“Bran has the best memory for these things. I remember I had to put Vaseline on my teeth each night so I could keep up the smile,” she muttered, shaking her head as if recalling this particular annoyance. She patted Bran’s head, then gave in and carded her fingers through his thick hair the way she wanted to. It wasn’t as if he could stop her. “If I pass you the scissors, do you want to start doing the bottom? Whilst I’m up here I might as well make a start on the lights.”</p><p>Bran nodded – a delightful sensation, considering his location – and she passed him the scissors. “Kara, could you hand me the spool with the indoor lights, please?”</p><p>With three decorating, they made short work of the tree. Bran was at his affable best, receiving Leah’s very detailed instructions on decoration placement without a qualm and giving in to all of Kara’s requests. <em>Yes, you can put a Christmas movie on</em>. <em>Yes, even that one with the unspeakable little girl. I’m not sure if there are any photographs of us, actually. You might have to Google it but we really weren’t the stars of the show. </em></p><p>She put the star on at the top, Bran standing on tiptoe and holding her waist as she leaned, and then slid down the back of his body once it was done. “Lights, please,” she instructed, forcing herself to remove her hands from Bran’s sides when she wanted to hug him instead.</p><p>Kara crawled to plug the lights in, head turned to watch as they came on. Her whole face lit up, literally and figuratively, as the tree came to life. “Ooh,” she sighed, as if she was a girl still and not a young woman.</p><p>Pleased, Leah tweaked a couple of strings, slightly, so that the lights were more even. “Very nearly perfect,” she decided, taking a step back and putting her hands on her hips.</p><p>They were fairly traditional when it came to Christmas decorations. ‘They’ meaning ‘Leah’, who took advantage of Bran’s utter disinterest in anything outside of his own office and bedroom and designed everything to her personal taste. Red velvet bows, gold and clear baubles, candy-canes, pine cones and icicles. Yet to be unpacked, they had matching garlands that climbed up the stairs and for over the mantle-piece in both the living area, Bran’s office and the bay window in the kitchen. It would look beautiful. She glanced at Bran, not looking for approval, not really, and caught him wearing the same look of wonder as Kara, his eyes shining with the reflection of the lights.</p><p>Bran saw her looking and smiled. “I love it,” he said. The expression dimmed as they prolonged the eye contact, however, a shadow of some deeper, darker thought crossing his face. He half turned. “I should get back to work.”</p><p>Leah was bemused and hurt at the same time – a typical mixture of feelings that he inspired in her. The sensation lasted just a nano-second, though, because she had practice in dismissing it. She smiled at Kara, still sitting on the floor and watching the dynamic between them with the same slightly puzzled expression that people new to their pack often wore when faced with the Alpha and his mate.</p><p>“Shall we finish the movie?” Leah suggested.</p><p>*</p><p>Bran was unusually demonstrative that night. So much so that she wondered if he was planning a trip this side of Christmas. This level of intensity, he usually only reserved for when they were going to be parted for a couple of weeks. Either way, she had a later start on Sunday than she wanted.</p><p>Oliver had told her that there was no need, this first time, to fully drain her energy into each focus. “You just want to let it know what you’re going to do. Kick-start it, so to speak.”</p><p>Some of her focus points were easier to access than others, with tracks that her pick-up could manage. Some were less so and she found herself hiking territory she hadn’t hiked for decades. The focus for the eight square mile block was actually dead in the middle of a creek and she glared at her GPS unit in irritation. Thankfully it wasn’t a very <em>deep</em> creek and she did wonder as she stood in it, up to her knees in water, if this would be a problem given Oliver had told her about water being destabilizing.</p><p>She would have to call him later, she decided.</p><p>It was fully dark by the time Leah completed her penultimate focus, leaving her own house until last. She drove into her drive, the Christmas lights glowing, feeling a little antsy. A similar kind of antsy to how she felt if she didn’t drain all her energy properly. She wondered if Oliver’s idea was actually working or if she’d just spent all day doing something deeply fruitless.</p><p>Bran’s car wasn’t in the drive, nor was anyone else’s come to that. She unlocked the door and tapped in the security code, wondering if perhaps he had gone away. Leah glanced in all the usual places where he might occasionally deign to leave her a note, then she kicked off her shoes at the base of the stairs and headed into the kitchen. She would use the focus in front of the stove whilst she heated up something for her dinner.</p><p>Leah was quite used to multitasking here, too. She took out a pan for heating soup and the griddle for some grilled cheese sandwiches and laid out all the ingredients necessary by the stove so she didn’t have to move. She started preparing the cheese sandwiches and dug her bare toes against the tile and the focus underneath. Heat began to build like it always did, a little uncomfortable at first, and she wanted to dance on the spot but forced her way through it until that sensation plateaued.</p><p>A strange, woozy feeling hit her and she stopped slicing cheese and leaned against the counter, trying to steady herself. After a moment or two of concern, it seemed to abate and she popped a morsel of cheese into her mouth, wondering if it was just hunger. She continued slicing, carefully, frowning as she wondered if it had worked. It <em>would</em> be convenient if it did.</p><p>The next moment, the woozy feeling came back with a vengeance, followed by a roaring noise in her ears. She put down the knife and covered her ears but it made no difference. Something was clearly wrong. Thinking it had something to do with the focus, that she should <em>stop,</em> she attempted to move, only it was if her body was wading through treacle. Her legs felt heavy, her feet superglued to the tile. Then there was a loud <em>POP! </em>and she saw a splash of liquid crimson hit her steel counter and then the roaring noise seemed to tunnel in on her and she felt her legs give way.</p><p>Then, blissfully, nothing.</p><p>*</p><p>She woke on the kitchen floor. Her head hurt and that was an understatement.</p><p>Distantly, she could hear someone calling her name but she couldn’t seem to respond. Her head <em>really</em> hurt.</p><p>Bran pushed through the door into the kitchen with his particular <em>whoosh</em> of magic. It scraped at her, inside. Leah rolled to the side and gagged. <em>Agony</em>.</p><p>“Leah, Leah, Leah,” he was saying, skittering to the floor next to her on his knees. His face was ashen, his hands outstretched over her, but not touching, as if he didn’t know where to start. “What happened? Where are you hurt? Leah?”</p><p>“My head,” she managed.</p><p>His cool hands seemed to be everywhere at once and then, because he was her Alpha, she felt the cool drain of pain as he cupped her jaw. Her vision grew dark but only because he leaned close to her, blocking the light. She felt his lips touch hers, briefly, then her cheek, then he was tucked close, breathing deeply in the crook of her neck.</p><p>Leah looped her arm around his neck, vaguely feeling as if he was the one who needed comforting but unable to do much about it.</p><p>After a few minutes, the pain receded to a more manageable headache. Bran eased her up to sitting and then took a packet of Kleenex from his jacket pocket and began dabbing at her face. He went through three tissues before Leah suggested maybe a wash cloth.</p><p>Bran swallowed and to her surprise, picked her up and carried her into their downstairs bath. She got a good look at her face, then, and gasped. “Good Lord.” She was <em>covered</em> in blood.</p><p>He sat her on the counter by the basin. “Yes, I thought you’d been shot in the head.”</p><p>“I should probably just shower at this point.” She reached up to touch the tender skin at the top of her forehead, now able to imagine what had happened. Something had gone wrong with the focus and she had passed out and hit herself on the sharp edge of their kitchen counter. Head wounds always bled so much. No wonder Bran had looked so aghast.</p><p>Her mate dabbed at her face with a wet wash cloth and then, cautiously, did the same with the wound on the top of her head. He carefully picked her hair out of it, wincing as he did so. “It’s quite a gash. What happened?”</p><p>Leah sighed. “I guess I slipped and hit my head.”</p><p>“You slipped.” Bran was quiet for a little while, just kept tenderly dabbing at her wound, washing the cloth out, wiping her skin. She really should just have showered. “I felt you, today. All over our territory. What were you doing?”</p><p>Perhaps because of the head wound, allowing her this moment of tenderness, she reached out to touch his face, the face of a man she had loved longer than any other. A face she thought more handsome than Hollywood superstars of past and present. A face she knew better than her own. “Walking the border. I haven’t walked some parts of our territory in so long.”</p><p>This wasn’t an answer and both she and Bran knew it. As ever, he let it go with a vague smile. He turned his face into her hand and she felt him breath in. “Did you meet anybody?”</p><p>She shook her head – <em>ow</em> – and felt a well of sadness, assuming he was referencing their wildlings. Another consideration for her mapping of the land were all the locations of their homes. She had been careful not to place any focus too closely. “No, but I kept expecting to see Devon.” There had been a select few that Devon had shown himself to. She had been one of them. </p><p>Her husband’s face mirrored her feeling. “So do I.”</p><p>Devon had been one of Bran’s original wolves – brought over with him from Europe – and he had loved him, as he loved all of his wolves.</p><p>Except, she acknowledged with a boring sense of resignation, herself.</p><p>“Would you like to shower?”</p><p>“Yes, probably a good idea.”</p><p>*</p><p>When Leah was sixteen, her father arranged her marriage to a man from a family – she was told – who had once had sorcerer blood. It was in his little black book, the book that told of the magics of the world, tracked all the families that had once held it. Begrudgingly, he gave her a glimpse of this, showed her the family tree of her betrothed and, stupid as she might have been, Leah was quickly able to work out one key fact.</p><p>“But Father he’s nearly sixty years old?” she had whispered, clutching the skirts of her dress nervously.</p><p>Her father hadn’t aged since he was in his thirties but his lip curled dismissively. Age was irrelevant to him. “It matters not. He can still get children on you. Then we will see what possible use you could be to me.”</p><p>It was a small ceremony. Her new husband had eyed her lasciviously but he had eyed her generous dowry even more so. It would go to pay for his mortgaged Beacon Hill townhouse, for the beautiful flame-haired mistress he kept, for his expensive horses and for his fine coats. He frequently came to her bed and what took place in it Leah hurried to forget.</p><p>Despite his best efforts, there were no children, nor even any sign that there might have been. On the night that would have been their tenth wedding anniversary, her husband had a heart attack in his club and died. Leah endured her lonely mourning period and, once she had returned to her father’s house, endured more rants about her evident barrenness and her sheer uselessness, the only fleeting highlights being the rare visits from her older brother who gave her sympathetic looks and snuck her sweet treats when their father wasn’t looking.</p><p>Then, one day, as she sat at the breakfast table listening to her father’s usual morning abuse, she set fire to the tablecloth. With her fingers.</p><p>Appalled at the abomination of his sorcerer blood running true in a mere <em>female</em>, he packed her off to the countryside with a distantly related chaperone whilst he made a plan of what to do with her.</p><p>Truth be told, Leah could not have wished for a better outcome. The few summers she had been allowed to spend in the country had been some of the best she remembered as a child, allowed to roam free and wild, unencumbered by governess or responsibility. Now, as an adult, an adult who had been passed from an intolerable father to an intolerable husband and then back again, Leah was finally free again.</p><p>Until, of course, she roamed straight into the lair of a werewolf.</p><p>*</p><p>Though by now she was healed enough to walk, Bran picked her up again and she lolled against his shoulder, feeling warm and cared for, even if it was for just this moment. Then he prefunctorily deposited her in her bathroom and left her to undress and stand under the stream of lukewarm water, watching the pink-tinted liquid drain away.</p><p>Leah hadn’t really considered her blood - her genetics – in a very long time. In the man who had bitten her, Changed her, her father had met his match. Claus was now her Alpha and that superseded any role her father might have once had. And nothing could compete with the spirit of the wolf that now resided in her.</p><p>Leah had been lost to him and no efforts to bring forth the sorcerery he had witnessed that day at the breakfast table had born fruit. He had sneered at her. “You’ve polluted yourself,” he had said scornfully, as if she had walked into the jaws of a werewolf on full moon on purpose. “The beast has you now. What a waste.”</p><p>That was the last she had ever seen of him. In Claus’s pack, for the first time she had been cherished. Female werewolves were rare and cossetted. She had been born a lady, no less, and her delicate ways had been a novelty to them, just as the urge to render and kill had come as a shock to her.</p><p>She grew to relish the strength of her new body, its flexibility. She had enjoyed the power and pleasure it brought to her and indeed the pleasure it could bring to others, to men. There had been little pleasure, or indeed power, in her life before. She resolved to chase both, for as long as her life would be.</p><p>The pack had moved, as packs back then had done, and settled in what would become Colorado. Not thirty years after she had taken her first steps on four feet, she met Bran and saw in him someone who could give her a life of pleasure. She had agreed a mating bargain with him and he brought her to her new home in Aspen Creek and for nearly two centuries, she had been nothing more than a generic werewolf in this pack of extraordinary werewolves.</p><p>Then one day, the sorcery returned.</p><p>*</p><p>Her brother had been mostly absent in her life – so much so that she would regularly, genuinely forget him – and yet he always seemed to know where she was. Every dozen years or so, the occasional letter or postcard would find its way into her belongings. Oh, not in anything so <em>mundane</em> as a postbox or on her doorstep. No, she would open a book one day and there would be a print of Brighton Beach and her brother’s near-illegible scrawl. It was never anything particularly erudite. <em>I like what you’ve done with the yard</em>, he’d write. Or, <em>I hope you are watching West Wing.  </em></p><p>The day she had awoken alone to singed pillowcases was the day Leah had stuck her hands in her cashmere cardigan and found a scrap of paper with a phone number.</p><p>She’d dialed it from a payphone outside of town, glad at least of the drive <em>away</em> from her home, the ringing sounds of her latest argument with Bran in her ears. He would not accept – in any sense – that his relationship with Mercedes was overstepping a platonic boundary, even though Leah and her wolf were quite convinced it was. But Bran always won their arguments. She felt sick with unhappiness.</p><p>“Hello?” she had said, nervously <em>mostly</em> certain she was calling her brother.</p><p>“Hello, little sister.”</p><p>At his voice, the first family she had spoken to in decades, Leah had felt unexpected tears well up. She hunched herself around the payphone, hiding herself from view, though she knew Bran, or anyone else from the pack, was nowhere near her.</p><p>“How are you?” Oliver had asked gently.</p><p>Leah could count on one hand the number of ‘how are you?’s she had been asked in the last, oh, nearly two-hundred-years. That was a lowering thought. </p><p>“I’m fine but, Oliver, I think I did that thing again,” she whispered, letting the tears fall down her face. He couldn’t see her; he didn’t know. “That thing, you know. Before.”</p><p>“Set fire to the breakfast table?”</p><p>“More like, set fire to something in my sleep.” The smoke had woken her. She had slapped her hands on the little flames before she had even fully opened her eyes. Her burnt palms had healed over the next hour, as she opened windows and tossed out the evidence of her alarming magical problem, grateful their sprinkler system hadn’t been triggered.</p><p>“In your sleep? Interesting.”</p><p>She sniffed miserably, scratching her nail against the sticker on the glass. She didn’t want this additional burden now. It was too much for her to deal with on top of everything else. “What do you think it means? Why is it happening again?”</p><p>He had sighed. “I… don’t know. Our father had always supposed that the wolf spirit overcame any of your genetics. I don’t suppose werewolves can develop additional magical powers?”</p><p>Some werewolves did, it was true. Older ones. But she felt normally it was something related to the pack, something more natural, an enhancement not… not a useless outpouring of energy. “I don’t think so,” she said, finally because she was the Marrok’s mate and revealing the intimate details of werewolves was not something she did any more.</p><p>“Hmm,” her brother said, not sounding convinced. “I suppose I’ll have to come and see you then.”</p><p>She had a split second of excitement. “You will?” Then a sudden drop. “Oh, but you can’t. No one can know you exist,” she said.</p><p>Not just for her sake, but for his. Keeping the family secret had been drummed into her since before she could speak. And she certainly couldn’t have Oliver in her home, in Aspen Creek, looking as he did – the male version of herself. Bran believed she had no relatives. No one with half a brain could look at Oliver and not think that they were related. What would they do? Pretend he was her great-grandson?</p><p>“We’ll have to meet somewhere else, then. Where do you go that wouldn’t be suspicious? Grocery store, perhaps? A mall? Movie theatre?”</p><p>They agreed on the mall, a location of all their future meetings. And, perplexed as to why this was happening, Oliver had eventually guided her through the steps of making her own focus. “Think of yourself like a battery that needs to drain out. We need to send the energy somewhere.”</p><p>When they’d said goodbye, Leah had thrown her arms around him, squeezing him tight in a gesture of affection she had never been allowed to show him. He was certainly startled by it. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you so much.”</p><p>*</p><p>Bran, perhaps concerned, more likely suspicious, was very attentive for the rest of the evening, leaving Leah little opportunity to contact Oliver with anything more than a quickly dashed-off email. She assumed she had done something wrong. Maybe the focus in the creek had been a mistake and it had created some kind of reaction? She didn’t know.</p><p>She lay in bed, looking at her Christmas tree. She felt drained, in all the ways possible – as if she’d run a marathon and then Changed several times back to back. Even with Bran’s power to fuel her, that would knock her out.</p><p>When Bran climbed into bed behind her, she half turned to tell him she wasn’t in the mood, but realized he was dressed in his pajamas and holding a book. This Bran wouldn’t make a move on her, not unless she invited him to. She went back to looking at her Christmas tree.</p><p>“How come I don’t get one?”</p><p>Leah jerked her head. “I beg your pardon?”</p><p>“A tree. How come I don’t get one?”</p><p>She smiled at this sweetly innocuous question. “You can have one if you want. There’s still plenty of time.”</p><p>Bran closed the book and slid down into the bed. He curled behind her, just touching, and she felt his fingers probe the healed wound on her head. “I’d like that. What were you doing out there, Leah?”</p><p>“Walking the territory. Our territory,” she murmured, the sense of inevitability about his asking the question again not escaping her. “I haven’t done it in years. We should do it together.”</p><p>“I do walk it.”</p><p>She turned again, surprised. “Do you?”</p><p>“It’s my territory. Some Alpha I would be if I didn’t.” His eyebrows rose. “Did you see anyone?”</p><p>Leah frowned. “No one, I told you.” Then, because whilst she wasn’t lying, she wasn’t <em>not</em> lying either, so she turned to face him properly. There was a delicate art to this. “Do you want to accuse me of something, Bran Cornick?”</p><p>“No. I don’t,” he said carefully. “But you’re not telling me the whole truth.”</p><p>“I walked <em>our</em> territory, <em>alone</em>,” she said again, managing to sound a little cross about it. “That is the whole truth.”</p><p>Bran studied her intently. She wondered if the witches were making him more paranoid, about everyone and her specifically. But she was no risk, to him or the pack, or at least she was trying her best not to be. She was no sorcerer, just a bundle of genetic mistakes with an inconvenient energy problem he would be unable to help her with.</p><p>She didn’t feel guilty, precisely, for not talking to him about that. There were plenty of things they didn’t share.</p><p>After a while, Bran rubbed his feet together and pulled a face. “All right. If you don’t want to tell me, I trust you to have a good reason for that.”</p><p>She laughed, no more than a huff of surprised humor. “Why, thank you.”</p><p>“I’d like this to be remembered the next time I don’t want to tell you something.”</p><p>“You’re more than welcome to bring it up.” Feeling more charitable than before, she cuddled him. He had come to her bed without the intent to seduce her, which meant he wanted her companionship, even if he was incapable of simply admitting so.</p><p>She remembered his grey face as he had loomed over her in the kitchen, the way he had scrubbed the blood from his hands, and her sympathy grew.</p><p>Bran put his arm around her, making his rumbling, grumbling noise, his human protest mixing with his wolf’s. “I’ll be sure to do that. And I want lots of lights on my Christmas tree. Colored ones.”</p><p>*</p><p>Unusually, for them, they woke tangled up together – both a little hot and sweaty from each other’s body heat, hands roaming skin before they had properly opened their eyes.</p><p>She could feel his interest, stirring against her stomach and she reveled in it, stretching a glorious, toe curling stretch, and Bran pushed her camisole up so he could mouth at her breast.</p><p>“Mmm, no kissing,” she instructed, weaving her fingers into his hair, digging her nails into his scalp. Her mouth tasted like something had died in it and she could tell he was no better.</p><p>Bran hummed, sucking her nipple into his mouth hard enough to make her yelp. “I’ll do what I like.”</p><p>She grinned, widely, and pushed at his head. He liked to go down on her in the morning and she liked that he liked that. “I know what you like. Get to it,” she ordered.</p><p>This got her another hum, a slight nip that made her hiss, and then he mouthed his way down her body pulling at her shorts and spreading her legs wide. He buried his face in her, as he always did, and she felt a wuff of air as he breathed her in before he went to town.</p><p>Bran held her still, stopping her writhing in fidgety, desperate pleasure at the ministrations of his tongue, and held her harder still when she came, the rushing heat of her climax coaxed further by the press of his fingers inside her.</p><p>Liquefied, she lay there whilst he lapped gently, little aftershocks shivering to her extremities. “What do you want?” she asked dreamily, touching her pebbled nipples, stroking her own skin that felt hot and oversensitive. “Want me to go down on you, too?”</p><p>She would like that, she thought. Liked the way he looked at her, as if just for a moment she was his everything.</p><p>Her husband shook his head and crawled up her, one hand dragging between the mattress and her body. In a move he had perfected, he tilted her hips and slid into her without missing a beat. They both sighed.</p><p>Bran, a glint in his eye, kissed her.</p><p>“Ugh,” she said, trying not to breath or open her mouth in any way whatsoever.</p><p>Bran laughed at her, snapped his hips so that she gasped, and he slid his tongue into her opened mouth. He set a quick, fast pace, holding her thighs up as he kissed her rapaciously, Leah soon forgetting she tasted like a dead raccoon.</p><p>They knew each other’s bodies well. At this pace and speed, this was the one position that would allow her to come again and he was a man who liked to demonstrate his prowess in bed, even with a woman who needed no more proof. She could feel that internal heat kindling once more and she welcomed it, arched into him, tugging him tight against her with her legs.</p><p>“Tell me when you’re close,” he said, moving to her neck.</p><p>“I’m close,” she replied immediately, almost as if his words made her orgasm begin to unfurl within her.</p><p>“Good girl.” Bran picked up the pace a little, hitting her at the precise point she needed. She started to whimper in pleasure as the feeling sharpened, grew and then – <em>oh, oh, oh</em> – took over.</p><p>To her surprise, once she had shuddered through her next climax, he pulled out and flipped her onto her hands and her knees. This was not a particularly normal pose for their morning routine and he had to arrange her quickly so she didn’t slump back down onto the mattress in her post-orgasmic haze. He slid back inside her, hands squeezing her butt.</p><p>“Damn,” Leah breathed out to the pillow, forehead resting against the soft material. He felt big, at this angle. And she’d come twice already so she couldn’t tell if it felt <em>good</em> big or if she was now too sensitive.</p><p>Bran set a punishing pace for himself, their skin slapping together, his hands moving to make adjustments to her hips, her thighs, stroking down the arch of her back, continuously touching her. She had to brace her hands against the headboard, which was hitting the wall with an unmistakable rhythmic sound, and pushing back against him, seeking the angle that stimulated her the best. She hoped no one was in the house.</p><p>“Fuck,” Bran said quietly, like a prayer, hips snapping towards her for the last time. His body tensed and then shuddered. He curled over her. “Oh fuck,” he repeated, sliding a hand up her torso to grab hold of a breast as he rolled his hips, pushing himself inside of her. He kissed the back of her neck and then bit down on her shoulder, shaking.</p><p>She loved it when he swore in bed, a sign that he had completely lost control of himself. She undulated against him and he shuddered again, his tongue pressing against her skin, lathing the mark he had made with his sharp teeth. Then, carefully, he slid from her with another kiss to her spine and sat back.</p><p>“Damn,” he sighed with finality, taking a deep breath.</p><p>Leah rolled over. Cool air touched her slicked, sensitive parts deliciously and as Bran watched she spread her legs, inviting his gaze.</p><p>He smiled. “Filthy,” he told her, resting a hand on her knee, then running his knuckle down the inside of her thigh.</p><p>Leah raised her eyebrows. “Am I?”</p><p>“No,” he laughed silently, leaning down to kiss her. His thumb stroked the wet crease between her legs. “But I am.”</p><p>“<em>That’s </em>very true.” She sighed. Who else but her would know it, though? Who would even believe it?</p><p>Bran looked as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth but it had been Bran who had taught her that there was more than missionary position. Bran who had shown her how to pleasure him with her mouth. It had been Bran who had introduced her to all the different ways in which she could enjoy herself with him, who had asked her with his face between her legs whether it felt better <em>like this</em> or <em>like that</em>.</p><p>Bran had two thousand years to learn all the tricks of the body and share them with her, a woman who had once sought only pleasure in her life. And they were good together. In bed, that was.</p><p>She raised her foot, pushed her heel into his shoulder, and glanced at the clock. It was just 7am. “Want to go again?”</p><p>Bran tilted his head to the side, as if he really had to think about it. “Oh, if you insist.”</p><p>*</p><p>It was a couple of days before Oliver responded to her email and she scheduled a time for him to call when she was safely in the grocery store. If she stuck around in the fruit and vegetables aisles, she’d have good signal.</p><p>Mindful that there were human ears around her – though it was mid-afternoon on a Tuesday and not terribly busy – she told him what had happened.</p><p>“There was a lot of blood. Freaked Bran out,” she finished, filling a brown bag with apples. It was an unfortunate reflection of their relationship that the most affection she received from her husband was after she had been hurt.</p><p>If she had been of a weaker mind, perhaps she would have become one of those women who courted danger for attention. Ran to her mate with every nick and cut, hoping he would kiss it better.</p><p>Bran would see through that quickly, of course.    </p><p>“Mmm, what did you tell him?”</p><p>“That I fell over. He wasn’t particularly convinced but, well, you know.”</p><p>“You have an interesting relationship.”</p><p>Leah shrugged and moved on to the oranges. She had a juicer machine and liked to come back from her run in the morning to a fresh glass of juice. “Remember the first time you had an orange?” she asked, holding up a brightly colored fruit. Sometimes, the difference of a few decades in the quality of life was disarming. Here she was standing in a cornucopia of fruit and vegetables and two-hundred years ago she wouldn’t have been able to name half of them.</p><p>Correctly understanding that Leah wasn’t actually asking the question, Oliver returned to the subject of their call. “I don’t think you didn’t anything wrong. I just think you weren’t ready for the feedback of the connection. It shouldn’t be so bad next time.”</p><p>“The feedback of the connection.”</p><p>“Yes. To establish a connection with something, there will naturally be a feedback. It’s not one-way. Do you remember making your first focus?”</p><p>“Vaguely. Maybe I had a headache?” It had been hard to tell. Leaking energy and setting fire to things had been extremely stressful. She’d often had a tension headache.</p><p>“That sounds about right.” Oliver grunted. “I’m sorry. I’m a bad teacher.”</p><p>“Dreadful,” she readily agreed, putting the oranges in the cart and moving on to berries. “So, if I do it again, I won’t pass out?”</p><p>“Probably not. You should be fine. If anything – it proves you did it right.”</p><p>Leah didn’t quite have his confidence. She mentioned the focus in the body of water.</p><p>He chuckled at her explaining how she’d had to wade through icy water to get to the right spot. “It’s not ideal but, again, if the connection worked than it’s not disrupted it. I wouldn’t use that one to power up the rest, though.”</p><p>“I don’t intend to. I’ll just stick to the one in the house.”</p><p>“I’m afraid you’ll have to refresh the connection every year so you <em>will</em> have to revisit your icy bath again.”</p><p>“Oh, really?” She pulled a face and grabbed a quart of strawberries. “That’s tedious. I was hoping the whole thing would be done with.”</p><p>“Afraid not, little sister. Sorcery is work, work, work,” he sighed.</p><p>“Speaking of, do you know a man named Fox Anderson?” There was a crackling pause, as if Leah had briefly lost connection. “Oliver? Are you there?”</p><p>“I am. No, I don’t know any Fox Andersons. An X-Files fan, is he? Why do you ask?”</p><p>“This guy came to our house the other week. Bran said he was a crack-pot – had all these theories about,” she lowered her voice, “Others. Witches and wizards. Which he said were wrong. But that he thought sorcerers were real and they could time travel.”</p><p>Another crackling noise. “Interesting. Do you remember what he looked like?”</p><p>She pictured him, the little she had seen as he had walked across her living room with Bran. She had been trained to be observant. “Medium height. Potbellied. Sort of… foxy-colored, actually, curly hair. Dark eyes, I think. He might have been mixed race. He wasn’t pale, not in the usual way you’d expect with red hair.”</p><p>“Hmm. Doesn’t ring a bell.”</p><p>“He has an online forum,” she remembered.</p><p>“Have you looked at it?”</p><p>Bran had sent the link around – not just to her, but Charles, Anna and Sam as well. It had tickled him. She had been cc’d on a number of emails between them laughing at the outlandish theories that were quoted. Thankfully there had been nothing they had picked up on about sorcerers. She’d been vaguely thinking if they had she would have had to have said something.</p><p>“I haven’t had time.” At the end of the aisle, there was a cardboard bin of wrapping paper. She selected a couple. She had a few more presents to wrap – including Bran’s, which always ended up being last. “Do you want me to forward it to you?”</p><p>“I’ve never had much success with forums. Might have to wait until I see you next.”</p><p>“Of course.” Part of the reason he changed phones so often and why the line was often terribly bad. He had tendency to short out technology.</p><p>*</p><p>It wasn’t until after Christmas that Leah felt she needed to drain her energy again – which meant she’d had a full three weeks and two days of comparative ‘freedom’. As a consequence of her tendency to set fire to things without intending to, she hadn’t travelled much in the last few years – certainly not for longer than a night.</p><p>The thought that this would no longer be a concern was certainly a load off her mind but it also opened up old avenues she had long since closed. She’d been wanting to go to New York, do a little shopping. Perhaps even travel to Paris now that Chastel was dead and he wouldn’t take personal offense at her presence in the capital. She had friends in Europe. Claudette in Italy. Sinclair in Edinburgh. People she had turned down invitations to visit in the past who had given up asking.</p><p>“Going somewhere?”</p><p>Leah jumped as the Moor made his presence known. “If I were, it would be none of your business,” she said tartly.</p><p>She felt a strong urge to close the lid of her laptop, as if she had been doing something illicit rather than simply getting an idea of flights and flight costs. If she wanted to travel for pleasure, she would have to pay for it herself. She did have her own money – investments made for her by Charles, predominantly, that gave her an income – but she had to be careful with it. Hence the unhappy prospect of flying economy across the Atlantic, otherwise she wouldn’t have any money to <em>spend</em> when she got there.</p><p>Asil swanned off to Bran’s office, no doubt deeply self-satisfied that he had managed to sneak up upon her and spy on her activities. She watched him go, hating him with every fiber of her being.</p><p>There had been a period, not so long ago, when with the exception of Bran’s sons, she had got on reasonably well with most of the pack. For a variety of reasons she now didn’t want to dwell on, that was no longer the case and she seemed to be constantly at odds with people. Asil being one of them.</p><p>She blamed Bran, of course.</p><p>Mostly.</p><p>Leah prepared dinner, half an ear on Bran’s office door, dreading the prospect that Bran might invite Asil to stay. He often did, despite knowing her reservations about the Moor. Bran claimed it was ‘good for them’, as if somehow being exposed to each other’s company might force them to get over their fundamental dislike and, yes, Leah’s fear.  </p><p>But she was relieved to hear Asil take his leave. Less relieved when Bran revealed during dinner that part of their conversation had been about her. “Making vacation plans?” he asked, pouring her a glass of wine.</p><p>“I do hope you told Asil that tattling on your wife was not part of the agreement of being Third in the pack,” she said coldly.</p><p>“Almost word for word, in fact. Except I used more colorful language.”</p><p>Leah smiled; she couldn’t help it. She cut through her steak happily. “Good. And, yes, I was looking at flights to Europe.”</p><p>He affected some surprise and then understanding. “I forget you have some good friends abroad. And of course it will be easier now without Chastel.”</p><p>“Exactly.”</p><p>“Though, and don’t take this poorly, I might suggest you are accompanied by someone.” He took a thoughtful sip of his wine. “Juste, perhaps.”</p><p>Leah chewed, trying to decide if she was going to take it poorly or if she was going to accept this no doubt sensible precaution.</p><p>Eventually, she nodded. “You’re right.” Bran had many enemies and outside of Northern Europe, her surname alone was not enough to protect her. And she would be further away from him, which would put limitations on her ability to draw strength from him.</p><p>“Who would you see?”</p><p>“Claudette. Sinclair.”</p><p>He nodded. “Italy and Scotland. Who was the woman from your first pack? Alaine?”</p><p>Leah pulled a face. “We fell out.”</p><p>“Oh?”</p><p>“I couldn’t convince you to Change her grandson.”</p><p>Bran looked blank. “When have you ever tried to convince me to Change anyone?”</p><p>“Never.” She lifted her glass of wine. There was a process for Changes. It was rigorous and clinical, designed to reduce the weight her husband carried over the deaths that occurred at the full moon ceremony. She would not add to that weight. “That was the point.”</p><p>Her husband regarded her for a long moment. “Thank you,” he said, eventually, seriously.</p><p>“You’re welcome.”</p><p>*</p><p>The parcel arrived shortly after new year. Not one to shy away from online shopping, Leah didn’t immediately recall what it was that she had ordered – and the packaging gave her no clues either. It was a large box, maybe four feet by three, but not very deep. Heavy too, and the courier had bade her to be careful, pointing out the ‘fragile’ stickers and the ‘this way up’ sign.</p><p>Puzzled, Leah carried it further into the living room and used her box cutter to carefully slice through what she thought was the top.</p><p>Peering inside, she was still none the wiser but she could see some kind of wood and polystyrene. What had she ordered? A picture? She really couldn’t recall. Maybe Bran had ordered something and the browser had auto-filled her name on it. It wouldn’t be the first time.</p><p>Carefully, she cut around the outside and as she removed layers of cardboard and polystyrene and bubble wrap, she could see it was a picture of some kind. Glimpses of the frame told her it was gold and ornate – old fashioned, nothing like the clean lines of the frames she had in her house. She tore at some brown paper and revealed the top half of the portrait and had it not been leaning against the wall, she would have certainly dropped it.</p><p>Blood pounding, Leah took a step back, hand against her chest. She could feel the rapidity of her heart under her fingers, the pounding of blood rushing in her ears. </p><p>No doubt drawn by her intense emotion, Bran’s office door opened. He padded down the hallway to her. “What’s this?” His fingers touched her back, briefly. “Are you all right?”</p><p>“Ah.” Leah wasn’t sure what to say. She was too shocked. A little nauseous.</p><p>Her husband turned his attention to the portrait and peeled back the paper to see inside. He jerked with surprise and then peeled more paper until the entire front of the portrait was revealed – a girl, seated, wearing the finery of the late 1700s suitable for members of the Boston elite, and a much older man with his hand on her shoulder. Copley had captured him perfectly down to the arrogant sneering smile and the dark, heavy brows. The mean little eyes.</p><p>A sick heat rushed to her face. She couldn’t look at it again and a sudden surge from her stomach told her she was close to tossing up her breakfast. She turned around, hands pressed to her abdomen. Shock and revulsion and shame spun her insides around.</p><p>Squeezing her eyes closed, she couldn’t seem to stop the press of memories that accompanied the sight of that man’s face. Ancient memories she had thought no longer affected her.</p><p>Behind her, there was more ripping. Leah heard the blocks of wood that had protected the edges fall to the floor. Then silence.</p><p>“It’s you. A very young you. Is this…” Bran paused and in tones that reflected an unlikely hope, “Perhaps your father?”</p><p>She shook her head and swallowed. “No.” Her voice came out hoarse. She blew out a couple of breaths, trying to calm down.</p><p>Leah heard him move around. In the reflection in their windows, she watched him crouch and study the painting closely. “Is this… is this a Copley?”</p><p>Leah nodded vaguely. He’d been a thin man, very thin, a little pock-marked from the smallpox epidemic, with prominent eyebrows. He hadn’t exactly been pleasant company but he’d certainly been better than her husband. Thankfully, she had been able to sit for the portrait alone. Copley had been well able to take sketches of them separately to allow for her husband’s busy schedule of paying devoted court to his mistress and socialising.</p><p>Bran stood. “Do you want me to put it away?” he asked brusquely.</p><p>‘Put it away’ suggested it would stay in the house. She didn’t want that. Thought of it taunting her from the garage or a guest room and couldn’t bear it. “Can we destroy it?”</p><p>“We can,” her husband said slowly. “If that is what you want.”</p><p>She nodded, frantically, half turning her head so he would be able to see her profile, see how serious she was. “I don’t ever want to see it again.”</p><p>“That’s fine. I’ll make sure of it.” Bran started to push the paper back, as if he was going to action this immediately. “Why don’t you go upstairs?”</p><p>Leah was more than happy to do so. She ran up to her room.</p><p>Obviously she expected Bran to raise the subject when she didn’t. And he did – but he waited a couple of days before he did so, and he made sure to do it when they were in the car, just starting the short drive to Charles’s and Anna’s, so she couldn’t get away.</p><p>Anna, who had come from a small, close-knit family that she had only really recently been able to rejoin, had begun to invite Bran and Leah over for Sunday dinners. Until he had married Anna, Leah had been inside Charles’s house precisely twice and one of those occasions had been the day she’d met Anna. She had not been on her best form so it was an occasion she did well to forget. </p><p>She had grown to dread these Cornick family Sunday dinners which had become a staple of her married life. She dreaded them more when they were held in Charles’s house. In her home she had the upper hand. She was the hostess, the Marrok’s mate, and had to be respected. When she was in Charles’s territory it felt… riskier. Suddenly she was on the back-foot. She had to have <em>guest</em> manners.</p><p>“I take it the man in the painting was your husband?”</p><p>Leah’s stomach swirled. She pressed the button to lower the window. “Yes.”</p><p>Though there was always very little traffic, Bran pulled out of their drive cautiously, likely because he wanted to make the journey as long as possible. She knew she should have suggested they walked. She could have run <em>to</em> Charles’s to avoid this conversation, which would certainly have been a first.</p><p>“You looked very young. How old were you?”</p><p>“Sixteen. Just,” she amended, in the interest of accuracy. She took hold of the door handle and squeezed it. She had a mad thought of unclipping her seatbelt and pushing open the door, tumbling to the road.</p><p>“From your reaction, I assume you didn’t go looking for this portrait. That it was sent to you.”</p><p>She nodded. “I don’t know by whom. I’ve been thinking about that.”</p><p>“Someone who knew you, perhaps. Or knew of your marriage. Which I didn’t,” he said, without even the slightest note of censure, “so I would imagine it’s not something you freely discuss with many people.”</p><p>“No.”</p><p>“Did you talk to Sage about it?”</p><p>She shook her head, ran her fingers along the edge of her seatbelt. “No.”</p><p>Leah’s relationship with Sage – such as it apparently was – had been complicated, as she found all relationships to be. Sharing intimate, shameful personal details had certainly not been part of it. And telling Bran had been absolutely out of the question, not when he had been married twice before – to two separate loves of his life. He didn’t need to know she had also been unloved by her last husband.</p><p>They drew up to Charles’s house and Leah gazed at the front door with relief. This conversation was going to end.</p><p>She popped her seatbelt but Bran caught her wrist. “Leah,” he said gently, the lights from the house reflecting in his eyes. “I’m not trying to be cruel in asking these questions. I can see that this is distressing for you. But someone knew you were the girl in the painting and knows where we live. I’m concerned.”</p><p>Leah blinked at him. Did he think her stupid? Still? “I <em>know</em>. And I said I’m thinking about it,” she snapped.</p><p>For a brief moment, Bran allowed some of his frustration to show, the fingers of his other hand gripping the steering wheel hard. Then he nodded and let go of her wrist. “Fine.”</p><p>*</p><p>Leah knew she was temporarily in a privileged position. As his mate, and thanks to his lingering guilt over Sage’s betrayal – an emotion she had never really thought him capable of – she was given additional leeway that he wouldn’t have granted to anyone else in their pack, with the possible exception of his sons.</p><p>But she knew it was temporary. She would have to either resolve the situation on her own – and give him evidence for it – or she would have to come clean.</p><p>The most obvious ‘culprit’ was her brother – who knew both where she lived and about her first marriage. Naturally, she wasn’t about to accuse him of sending her what felt like a threat but she sent an email, just in case, explaining what had happened.</p><p><em>Is there anyone else</em>, she asked, <em>who might know of me? </em></p><p>She did not hear from him for several days. And for several days the connecting door between her and Bran’s rooms remained firmly closed. Her husband did not come to her bed or otherwise interact with her the way two people who lived together might do. What discussions they did have were clipped and difficult. Like Bran, Leah did not often feel guilt but this was a special case – for the first time she felt guilty for not being upfront with him, felt guilty for lies of omission.</p><p>Leah had never been particularly troubled by her genetics, certainly not with regards to informing Bran about them, because until comparatively recently, and very late in their marriage, she truly had been nothing but a generic werewolf.</p><p>Bran <em>liked</em> that she was a generic werewolf. No Shaman or witch powers to shake things up the way his first mate had. She held no surprises for him. Her very predictability was a balm to his wolf. With Leah he had got – quite literally – what he bargained for.</p><p>When that had changed… well. As with all things to do with their relationship, context had been everything. At the time of that first flurry of unplanned firepower, she thought he’d been fucking a teenage coyote Walker and the fact that Leah was now setting fire to her bedding felt like a lesser priority than the end of her marriage to the only man she had ever loved. </p><p>And she had really thought it was the end of her marriage. She had been waiting for it for decades, after realizing that she would never succeed in getting him to love her back. That one day – inevitably – a woman would come who would show Bran that the danger of his wolf was a sacrifice he would be willing to make for loving her in return.</p><p>She’d thought Mercedes had been that woman, though she had barely been a woman. She had been a baby, a girl for Bran to mold into the kind of woman he could love as well as respect. Magical. Pure of heart. Clever. </p><p><em>That</em> had been what had been most occupying her mind. The return of her sorcery had been an inconvenience that she needed to rid herself of so she could focus on what really mattered to her. Bran.</p><p>*</p><p>Tuesday night, very late, her cell phone rang somewhere in the house. She hadn’t been asleep – just lying there, thinking cyclical, unhappy thoughts and missing Bran with a physical ache – so she trotted downstairs to try and find it. It was shoved behind a couch cushion on a couch she didn’t recall sitting on. The number on the screen was unfamiliar to her but she answered it anyway; late night calls were only ever an emergency.</p><p>The line crackled. “Do you….….it?” a voice, her brother’s, asked, the distortion cutting out part of the sentence.</p><p>“This line is terrible,” she whispered.</p><p>Bran was in his room, at least she thought he was, so she hurried down the hall to his office, the only sound proofed room in the house and closed the door behind her.</p><p>“Do you still have it?” he repeated, the connection suddenly crystal clear, almost as if he was in the room with her. It was almost startlingly different.</p><p>“The portrait? No, I asked Bran to get rid of it straight away.”</p><p>“And did he?”</p><p>“I assume so. Why?”</p><p>He sighed. “I need to tell you why I’m here.”</p><p>Leah rolled her eyes at the unanswered question. “Here? Are you still in Montana?”</p><p>“Yes. I’m in Great Falls. I think our father is here.”</p><p>She sat or, more accurately, her knees gave out and she dropped down, thankfully on the small Chesterfield that was in Bran’s office.</p><p>“I see,” she said, trying to swallow down the lump in her throat. “Why— why would he be here, do you think?”</p><p>“I don’t know. But it has bothered me that this is where you live. <em>When</em> you are living.”</p><p>The line fell quiet for a long moment and both of them perhaps considered the possible repercussions of this.</p><p>“He enjoys great power, Leah,” Oliver said after a moment. “It’s all he ever wanted.”</p><p>Of course she knew that. Power for himself and himself alone. He had courted great men and women in history for that power. He had ended the lives of those who would take that power away from him.</p><p>He had hoped that she would add to his power. That she would be born male, another sorcerer to take his name and continue his destiny. But she had been born female. Barren. And her father had ceased his interest in her as soon as she became a werewolf.</p><p>To this day, it had been one of the biggest benefits to her Change – his lack of interest in her, her sudden and abrupt freedom from his manipulations. Though she had intermittent contact with Oliver, she had never seen – or heard – from her father again. He had disowned her and erased her from his life.</p><p>She turned her hand over on her lap, looking at the tips of her fingers. “You don’t think he knows—?”</p><p>“I can’t think how he would. You’ve told no one and I certainly haven’t. But a thought occurred to me - he <em>might</em> know about your husband.”</p><p>It was on the tip of her very stupid tongue to ask why her father might be interested in Bran. Then she snorted. <em>He enjoys great power</em>. “Yes. Yes, of course.”</p><p>She pressed her fingers against her temple. It wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility that her father had discovered she had married the Marrok. Two hundred years ago, it would probably have been irrelevant to him. He’d called werewolves a dying breed. He’d sneered at their worthlessness, at the beck and call of a Pagan moon, and claimed she would be dead in twenty years.</p><p>But perhaps if he had been moved to investigate a little further – if he had discovered she had not died – he would have found out that her husband was a Great Power in the world. And now in the Twenty-first Century a greater power still.</p><p>Thanks to Bran, werewolves were no longer a dying breed. They were thriving. Slowly but surely. He was one of the major Other chess players in the big game.  </p><p>“What made you think he was in Montana?”</p><p>“He is a creature of habit and uses a handful of aliases so he’s always been reasonably easy to keep an eye on. He bought a couple of properties here – one in Butte, another in Great Falls – that have no discernable value. There’s also next to no magical community here outside of your people. I know because I have been trying to find one these last few weeks. So I am at a loss as to what he’s planning.”</p><p>It was odd to think of her father in the present. She knew he had to be sometimes – but for her, her memories of him were forever trapped in the past, shrouded in a mist of his own creation. She could remember some things clearly -  his voice as he berated her for allowing a werewolf bite to take her from him. The swish of his wool great coat as he left, his carriage driving him away. But nothing more than that. She didn’t even know the color of his hair.</p><p>“I would suspect your husband is curious enough to have not got rid of the portrait. I want to see it. Perhaps there’s a message in there somewhere.”</p><p>Leah pursed her lips. “I shall see. Have you seen him?”</p><p>“No. Not for lack of trying, however. I have tried all the usual methods.”</p><p>Unlike Leah, her father and Oliver still occasionally saw one another. In the present and the past. Their relationship was fractious, a never ceasing game of one-upmanship, but she had always thought that their father enjoyed it. Saw Oliver’s thwarting of his plans as a demonstration of his success as a parent.</p><p>“I shall persevere, however,” Oliver mused. “I think it’s time I brought you up with him. See what kind of reaction I get.”</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p>Leah crept into Bran’s room, knowing as she did so that trying to be stealthy with him was manifestly impossible. He poorly, always, and like a cat and as her feet padded nearly silently across the hardwood floorboards she saw him open his eyes. He was even lying on his back, a position he rarely took when he was actually sleeping. Perhaps he had been woken by her cell phone ringing as well.</p><p>She stood to the side of the bed, not sure how to begin. She was disturbed by the phone call with her brother. Disturbed that her father’s interest might not be in her, but in Bran, whom she loved and wanted to keep well out of his father’s machinations. She believed Bran was more powerful – she had two centuries of evidence to that. She believed, too, that Bran was a match for duplicity and creative thinking. It was she that was the weak link. It was always she.</p><p>“Thank you for being so patient,” Leah began, her voice sounding loud in the soft intimacy of his dark bedroom.</p><p>He did not move or look at her. “You’re welcome.”</p><p>She crept a little closer. He had taken ‘his’ side of the bed so she knelt on her side, just on the edge. “Did you destroy the painting?”</p><p>“No,” he said patiently, crossing his hands over his stomach. “It’s currently in Charles’s garage.”</p><p>Irrationally, she was a little cross that her will had not been executed. She <em>wanted</em> the portrait to be destroyed. Wanted it to go up in flames.</p><p>As if privy to her thoughts, Bran let out a little huff but continued to stare at the ceiling. He lifted a finger and then dropped it. “I was giving you space to rethink. Which you have done.”</p><p><em>She</em> hadn’t. She was annoyed that he thought he knew her so well. “I would like to send it to someone,” she whispered, barely able to keep the irritation from her voice that he had been <em>right </em>and was so damn smug about it.</p><p>A small shudder ran through her husband and mate as Bran tried to control his reaction to her continued prevarication. “Just tell me, Leah. Tell me what is going on.”</p><p>She lifted her eyebrows. “Have you reached your end of your patience, then?”</p><p>“The end of my—” Bran made a noise, half growl, half laugh. “I <em>know</em> you have been speaking to someone on the phone regularly for weeks – but it is only when I’m out of the house or you are. It’s related, isn’t it?”</p><p>She sucked in a shocked breath. “Have you been spying on me?” she demanded.</p><p>Bran spared her an irate glance and sat up abruptly, abruptly enough that she shied back on the mattress to stand up. But he did not come for her, just yanked open the drawer of his bedside table and pulled out sheets and sheets of papers, throwing them on the bed. “We’re on the same cell phone plan, Leah, I see our itemized bills.”</p><p>Oh. She picked up one page. He seemed to have gone to town with various highlighters. “He doesn’t always have the same number, though,” she murmured thoughtfully.</p><p>His eyes went suddenly wide, blown mad with urgency. “<em>He</em>.”</p><p>Leah froze at the extraordinarily emphatic bile Bran was able to put into a single word. He was panting, now. She could hear his heart racing, taste the adrenaline permeating the air. She knew these signs; Bran was preparing to fight.</p><p>The implication landed on her abruptly – what he might have interpreted from her words. From her actions. “Oh, no, no, no, Bran. <em>No</em>.” Despite every instinct screaming from her wolf to keep away, she climbed back on the bed and crawled to him, got as close as she could without touching him, her hands out in front of her. “No. It’s nothing like that. Of <em>course</em> it’s nothing like that.”</p><p>“I know you wouldn’t do that,” Bran told her, firmly, like he was telling himself. His urgent eyes turned on her, glaring.</p><p>“I wouldn’t. I’m not. I couldn’t.” Leah gave in and touched his chest, placing her hand over his racing heart. She knew well the special kind of jealousy he was experiencing, that poisonous mixture of human paranoia and the wolf’s territorial instincts. It was irrational. And violent. She did not contain it a tenth as well as he had done.</p><p>Bran took her hand, squeezed it, and then let go. He pushed himself back in the bed until he was sitting upright and fiercely rubbed his face. When his hands pulled away, dropping to his lap, he was normal again, not a trace of the madness she had briefly seen. Even his heart rate had returned to its usual reassuring rhythm. “So tell me.”</p><p>Amazed as ever at his ability to box up his feelings so neatly, Leah shifted, carefully, so she was leaning against the pillows on her side of the bed. “The man I have been speaking to is my brother, Oliver.”</p><p>Her husband made a noise. “You have a brother.”</p><p>“Yes. And – in the loosest possible senses – a father.” She waved a hand about. “He is an unpleasant person and has taken very little interest in me since I became a werewolf. But Oliver thinks <em>he </em>sent the portrait. Reasonably speaking, he’s the only one it could be from. Only he and Oliver were alive when I was married. It’s not beyond the realms of consideration that my father got hold of the household effects originally and stored them away.” They were bought with her father’s money after all. If Bran thought she was profligate, it was nothing on her first husband, she mused.  </p><p>Through this short speech, she watched Bran’s facial expression for any kind of reaction, but he simply stared fixedly across the room, his brows lowered as if he was demonstrably thinking hard. “What manner of Other is your brother and father to still be alive after all this time?”</p><p>Of course, he had got to the meat of the matter very quickly. She closed her eyes, bracing for his anger, but willing to bear the brunt of it. She could not deny she didn’t deserve it. “Your conspiracist had it right – he, and my father, are those nearly extinct sorcerers. The very last of their kind, as my brother believes.”</p><p>Leah waited. Bran was usually quick with his explosions when he had them. A stream of fury, the tingling, chilled press of his monster fingering his way to the surface of Bran’s control. When nothing immediately happened, she opened one eye. When she saw that he was simply puzzled, she released the tension she was holding. “Nothing to say?” she checked.</p><p>The puzzled look seemed to morph somewhat into an expression she couldn’t quite parse. “A sorcerer, Leah? Truly?”</p><p>“Yes. It’s… mostly math, not sacrifice, like witches,” she said, summarizing baldly the core of her understanding of what her family could do. Her father had kept her well clear of it. And then it had become irrelevant.</p><p>For a strange moment, she thought Bran was going to laugh. Then he asked, brows quirked, “Time travel?”</p><p>“That, too. Yes. But within very specific parameters.”</p><p>Leah was slow to realize why he hadn’t reacted the way she had anticipated. That look on his face was doubt; Bran didn’t believe her. He thought she was making it up. Or perhaps horrendously misinformed. It was not a reaction she had planned for and for a long moment didn’t know what to say.</p><p>Then, she felt herself flush hot with embarrassment. “It’s true,” she said, sitting up straight, folding her legs beneath her.</p><p>“I— am struggling to believe it. I have been around a long time,” Bran said gently. He was trying to be kind. It burned her.</p><p>“Oh, and that makes you omniscient does it?” she demanded.</p><p>The kind, half amused, expression remained. “No, but I think it gives me some dispensation to be doubtful.”</p><p>Doubtful? It was <em>her</em> family. <em>Her blood.</em> Here she had been, ready to accept her punishment, and he didn’t believe the very essence of who she was, who she had been born to, like she was a child who had been lied to all her life. A stupid little girl who knew no better. He was unbelievable.</p><p>“Fine then,” she said through her teeth. She clambered out of his bed, furious. “Don’t believe me. I’m sure it’s enough that I’m not fucking someone else.”</p><p>“It’s certainly a load off my mind. Leah, don’t go. I apologize, I do.”</p><p>But to her oversensitive ears he still sounded like he was laughing at her. She flung open their connecting door and slammed it behind her, locking it. Then she did the same to the door into the hall.</p><p>With her foot, she took a swipe at a cushion that had dropped from her bed, sending it soaring across the room to hit her bookcase.</p><p>“Asshole,” she muttered. Fine. She would go to Charles’s tomorrow, pick up her portrait. She would deal with this on her own. Bran could go hang.</p><p>*</p><p>Anna opened up the garage for her. “Do you want to come in for tea?” she asked brightly.</p><p>There had been a time in Leah’s not-so-recent past when being invited into Charles Cornick’s house would have been something of a nefarious treat. Now they had <em>family dinners</em> and Charles had a wife who looked at Leah like she was a school project. And she thought Charles’ wall art was ugly so she couldn’t even look at that with any enjoyment.</p><p>“No. Thank you,” Leah added with gritted-teeth politeness, picking up the portrait. Someone had re-wrapped it with brown tape and sealed it back into the box so at least she didn’t have to look at it. </p><p>“Okay.” With unbridled curiosity, Anna followed Leah back to her car. “Is it some kind of surprise present? Bran was vague.”</p><p>That was something, at least. She wasn’t so keen on Charles and his perfect wife knowing her private business. “He’s always vague.”</p><p>Luckily she had not seen her husband that morning – she’d left just before dawn for her run and by the time she had returned, having truly pounded the earth with her frustration, his car was no longer in the drive. She was still annoyed with him but it was more muted. She knew she would have to try to speak to him again – that was the way marriage worked – but was hoping to put that off for some hours. Talking to him whilst she was still in a temper never ran in her favor.</p><p>“Is everything all right?”</p><p>Oh God, it was <em>incessant.</em> Having a baby look at her with pity was beyond enough. She was looking forward to the first time Charles did something so heinous even Anna struggled to forgive him. For he would. Cornicks always did. “Everything is fine, Anna<em>.</em>”</p><p>Leah popped the trunk and shoved the painting none-too-gently inside, not caring for damage. She’d looked up the value of a Copley and suspected the real reason Bran hadn’t burned it immediately had been monetary. She didn’t care. She didn’t want anyone to profit from the ugliness of her first marriage, least of all Bran.</p><p>Anna gave up then, with the wry superiority of all Cornicks. She waved a hand and started walking back to her house. “That’s good, then. We’ll see you Sunday.”</p><p>“Lucky me,” Leah muttered, loud enough for Anna to hear, as she climbed back into her car.</p><p>She drove to the mall in silence, nothing but her own irritated thoughts fuelling her. She parked in the same spot she always did and closed her eyes, made herself take a few deep breaths. Bran was wrong this time – a thought that would normally fill her with great satisfaction. He would come to regret his doubting her. Again.</p><p>She jumped when Oliver opened the car door.</p><p>“Well hello,” her brother said cheerily, peering down at her. His bushy dark-blonde eyebrows went up. “Oh dear, you are wearing your grumpy face.”</p><p>Leah pursed her lips. She popped the trunk. “It’s in the back.”</p><p>The first problem was that the box had been <em>very</em> well sealed and the only knife Leah had in the car was not one she really wanted to flash around a parking lot. They eventually managed by brute force and the sharp edges of her keys but it was frustrating work. She swore. A lot.</p><p>“What’s with the temper?” Oliver asked as he finally ripped off the paper to reveal her young face. He cooed, his face softening. “Oh, look at you, I remember this baby.”</p><p>No baby now, Leah grunted and turned her back, leaning against the tailgate with arms folded. “Bran. I tried to tell him about you last night and he didn’t believe me.”</p><p>“That you had a brother? Or what we are?”</p><p>“The latter. Apparently he was perfectly prepared to believe I had a sibling but only if you fell into one of his known ‘Others’.”</p><p>Oliver snorted. “I see.” Out of the corner of her eye, she watched him turn the painting one way then another.</p><p>Whilst Oliver fiddled, Leah checked her cell and – though there was nothing new from him – the text message trail she had with Bran. It was full of deeply prosaic, married messages going back to the first day she activated her cell phone. <em>Buy milk</em> interspersed with <em>can you pick up the dry cleaning</em> with <em>I’m picking up pizza</em>.</p><p>She scrolled back through weeks of such like until she found the one she was looking for. Sent at 9.32pm, from Bran.<em> Back in an hour.</em> <em>I want you in my bed.</em></p><p>Her heart leaped, just as it had done when she had first read it, a liquid, anticipatory warmth spreading through her. He didn’t send messages like it – not before and certainly not after. It comforted her like nothing else, the idea that Bran had thought of her, had wanted her from afar, and for once had let her know. She imagined him typing it out and it made her mouth water.</p><p>Leah supposed a more strategic person would wonder what had preceded it. Would have wondered what had worked Bran into such a state of need. But she knew overthinking such things would lead to bitter imaginings so she steered well clear and just enjoyed it for what it was. Desire. Nothing more. Nothing less.   </p><p>There was a small tearing noise next to her. “Whoops,” Oliver murmured, drawing Leah’s attention to what was going on in the trunk. She clocked an eyeful of the damnably accurate rendition of her first husband’s narrow face and turned away again.</p><p>Oliver flipped the portrait and began to investigate the back, flicking at the little metal teeth that held the backing into place. “I suppose you don’t have a toolkit? A screwdriver or pliers would be ideal.”</p><p>If Leah had thought to bring her truck instead of the Lexus, she would have been better equipped but when she had left home that morning she had been looking for speed. “No. I could probably go and buy one.”</p><p>“No matter. I suppose we’ll make do with your house keys again.” Oliver got back to work on the portrait, digging out the little metal teeth with the keys, grunting as he did so. “You said you tried to tell him. I take it it failed?”</p><p>“I lost my temper. And then this morning he was out.” She exhaled deeply. “I should have tried harder, shouldn’t I?”</p><p>“Probably. But you have the family temperament so I can understand how it happened.” Oliver flashed her a knowing smile. He really was exceptionally handsome, her brother. “How far did you get?”</p><p>“Not far at all. I told him about you and Father,” she lowered her voice, “and naturally he wanted to know what manner of Other you were. At which point he expressed his doubts.”</p><p>“I thought you could smell lies.”</p><p>“We can. So I think he assumed I had been lied to all my life. He believes he knows everything.”</p><p>“Men of his age often do.” Oliver grunted some more and pulled out one of the teeth. He looked at it disparagingly. “They couldn’t have got a nice frame from Ikea?”</p><p>Smiling faintly, Leah looked around the parking lot. She’d parked on the outskirts because it wasn’t particularly busy and it gave her a good view of any cars that were around her. Line of sight was important when one was watching for danger, which Leah always seemed to be doing these days.</p><p>Further away from the press of other vehicles, she could also decipher the various smells. Fuel, humans, the chemical combustion in the engine. Someone had spilled milk that morning. A fox had peed by a lamp post. It was all deeply, boringly normal.</p><p>Abruptly, she felt her temper dissipate as it sometimes did. She’d thrown Bran a curve ball and she hadn’t liked his reaction but it <em>had</em> been a curve ball, after all. On a whim, Leah gave her mating bond a little tug. She could feel that Bran was miles away but sometimes, <em>sometimes</em>, he responded to her cries for attention.</p><p>Her cell phone buzzed in her hand. She glanced hopefully at the screen and was in the rare position of having her hope fulfilled. She answered, not keeping the surprise from her voice. He had answered her. “Hello.”</p><p>“Hello,” Bran said. </p><p>She imagined there might come a time in her life when she didn’t get a kick from hearing his voice on the phone but today was not that day. “Where did you get to this morning?”</p><p>Graciously, Bran allowed her this pretense at normality. “There was a felled tree up on the track to Tag’s.”</p><p>“Ah. You and your trusty chainsaw were required.”</p><p>“Indeed. We’ll be chopping logs for days. And where are you?” he enquired oh-so-politely.</p><p>“Parking lot of the mall.” She watched Oliver rotate the portrait. He was making reasonably fast work of the teeth now, having got a rhythm.</p><p>“Charles said you picked up the painting this morning.”</p><p>“I did.” She then didn’t know what to say. Did she mention Oliver? That they were taking apart the painting? It was difficult, mid-disagreement as they were.</p><p>Her brother looked at her, eyebrows raised with good humor. “Should I say hello?”</p><p>There was a pause on the other end of the line, though Bran would certainly have heard that. “Your brother, I presume?”</p><p>“He says hello,” Leah said redundantly.</p><p>“Please return the favor.”</p><p>“Bran says hello back,” she said, finding the situation faintly amusing. She felt like she was in a farce. “We’re in the process of taking the painting apart. I say ‘we’, I mean—”</p><p>Oliver stood up suddenly, putting a halt to her speech. “How fond of this car are you?”</p><p>She held the phone away from her ear, alerted by the seriousness of his expression. “What do you mean?”</p><p>He yanked her away and slammed the lid of the trunk closed, dropping her keys. “Never mind. I have a better idea.” Oliver placed his hands on the car and she saw a shimmer of <em>something</em> pass over it, then there was a sucking sensation, her ears popping, and her car jerked. The piercing car alarm went off.</p><p>“What the heck?” Leah fumbled for her keys, locking and then unlocking the car to deactivate the alarm. The blissful silence that followed was a balm to her ears.</p><p>Oliver put his hands on his hips and looked around. “Right. Well, you got your wish, it’s definitely destroyed now. Somewhere in 14<sup>th</sup> Century Siberia, there’s a pile of debris that will mystify scientists for centuries to come.”</p><p>“It blew up? He sent a <em>bomb</em> to my house?”</p><p>“<em>He</em> didn’t.” Oliver opened the trunk again and, sure enough, nothing but paper and cardboard remained. “That would be a singularly wasteful use of his power and bloodline.” He tapped his fingers on the trim of the car. “What an intriguing puzzle this is.”</p><p>“Forgive me if detonation devices being sent to my house don’t quite thrill me the way it does you,” Leah replied drily, pushing pieces of paper and cardboard aside as if there might somehow be evidence of the remains. “Some message.”</p><p>“It probably wouldn’t have killed <em>you</em>,” her brother said thoughtfully. “If I hadn’t been fiddling with it, it would likely have just detonated at a specific time.”</p><p>
  <em>Leah.</em>
</p><p>She jolted at the mental voice of her husband, having quite forgotten she was on the phone to him. “Hello. Sorry.”</p><p>“What happened?” came Bran’s cool voice.</p><p>“Nothing. It’s gone.”</p><p>“It didn’t sound like nothing.”</p><p>“Well. No.”</p><p>He made a disgruntled noise. “I would have smelled a device on that painting, Leah.”</p><p>“I don’t think it was a ‘device’?” Leah sent a questioning look to Oliver, who shook his head. “Oliver says no.”</p><p>“Then what was it?”</p><p>Oliver nudged her aside and closed the trunk again. “It was trapped energy. I’m hungry. Are you hungry?”</p><p>She rolled her eyes. “<em>No</em> Five Guys.”</p><p>“Taco Bell?”</p><p>“For God’s sake. Don’t you ever eat a proper meal?”</p><p>“<em>Leah</em>,” Bran said demandingly in her ear. “Bring your <em>brother</em> here. We need to talk.”</p><p>Then Bran hung up.</p><p>“Would you like to come to mine for lunch?” Leah asked politely.</p><p>“Do I have a choice?”</p><p>“Not unless you want to make my life particularly difficult.”</p><p>“Then I’d be <em>delighted</em>.”</p><p>*</p><p>Leah watched Bran watch Oliver prowl around their living area. When he wasn’t watching Oliver, he would look at her – frowningly puzzled – and then away again. She supposed if she was introduced to a sibling of Bran’s so long into their acquaintance, she would be puzzled too.</p><p>Though – Oliver was right – with her temperament, she would probably have just skipped straight to anger.</p><p>After a few minutes of awkwardness, Leah recalled that she had a duty as a hostess and Leah prided herself on being a good hostess. She always had done. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to rustle up something for lunch,” she murmured.</p><p>If she thought she would be alone in this endeavor, she was wrong. Oliver followed her. And Bran followed Oliver.</p><p>“What a lovely home you have,” her brother said appropriately, upon reviewing her cherry and steel kitchen.</p><p>Bran was affecting his most affable persona. “You’ve never been before?”</p><p>Her brother could not be unaware of the undertones of this question. “Not as such.” Oliver peered into the full refrigerator over Leah’s shoulder. “What about grilled cheese?”</p><p>Since that was a simple meal to achieve, and quickly, Leah took out sliced cheese, Irish butter, and ham. “Perfect.”</p><p>“What’s in here…. oh my God, look at this pantry,” Oliver cooed, opening the door to the right. He disappeared inside and proceeded to make noises of ecstasy, murmuring brand names as if they were precious gems rather than tins of the good tomatoes. “Who’s the hot sauce addict?”</p><p>“Bran,” Leah replied promptly, with a swift glance at the man in question. He had taken a relaxed position, leaning against the counter, arms crossed over his flannel button down. His expression and general demeanor could best be described as ‘bland’. “He puts it on nearly everything.”</p><p>Oliver poked his head out with a broad grin. “Do you mind if I try a couple?”</p><p>Her husband made an expansive gesture. “Go right ahead.”</p><p>Leah busied herself with preparing grilled cheese sandwiches, taking out a board to construct them and then one of the bigger grill pans. Silently, Bran unwrapped a loaf of bread and began buttering slices, arranging them so she could add the fillings. She tried smiling at him but received the same blandly neutral look in response.</p><p>Cross, Leah decided as she slapped cheese and ham between bread. Very cross.</p><p>Hot sauce bottles clinking in his hands, Oliver emerged as if he had just raided a treasure trove. “One of these is homemade.”</p><p>“I made that. I must warn you, it made Bran cry, which appears to be the objective,” Leah added, arranging sandwiches onto the sizzling pan and turned down the heat.</p><p>Oliver pulled up a stool and sat. He really was doing a sterling job of pretending the atmosphere in the kitchen between Bran and Leah wasn’t absolutely stifling. “The mark of a fine hot sauce,” he said, pulling out the cork and taking a sniff. He reeled back. “Okay. That might be too much for human taste buds.”</p><p>Bran’s head tilted. “So you are human?”</p><p>“As much as a witch is, yes,” her brother said easily, re-stoppering the bottle.</p><p>“Is there a comparison?”</p><p>“Genetically? Not sure. I’ve never had the facility to test that. I don’t expect the science is there yet, either.”</p><p>This gave Bran the opportunity to smirk. “You can’t leap into the future to when it is?”</p><p>“No, we can only go backwards,” Oliver replied seriously. He hopped off the stool and opened one of the glass-fronted cabinets where they stored their plates, taking down three. Such a helpful guest. “Where do you keep your cutlery?”</p><p>Bran was near enough to her that she could nudge him with her hip pointedly and he took the hint and started laying the table by the window. “Drink, Oliver? Water, Soda, milk? A beer?”</p><p>Flipping sandwiches, Leah’s eyebrows rose. Bran didn’t regularly offer alcohol. What was he thinking? That alcohol would make Oliver’s tongue looser? She wondered if it would work.</p><p>“A beer would be great if you have it.”</p><p>A beer meant a trip to the drinks refrigerator in their garage which meant Leah had a few moments of breathing room. She slumped a little over the frying pan.</p><p>“Ooof, he’s mad,” Oliver whispered, sidling up to her. <em>He</em> sounded entertained.</p><p>“He is. And I don’t blame him. If he revealed a secret sibling I’d be pissed, for that alone.” Leah flipped out the first batch of toasted sandwiches onto the cutting board and added another four for the werewolves who were dining. “Could you pass a plate?”</p><p>Bran returned with three bottles of beer. She made a quick salad, in an effort to make the meal look better balanced and then sat to have lunch with her husband and brother for the first time.</p><p>It should have been a nice occasion. Instead, each mouthful of melted cheese rather felt like she was eating cardboard. Even Oliver’s attempts at conversation faded away and for a while there was nothing but the sound of chewing and beer being drunk.</p><p>It was Oliver who broke first, with a guilty look at her. “To be fair to Leah—”</p><p>Bran held up a finger, eyes suddenly chips of murky ice. “Do not.”</p><p>Her brother’s expression perceptively cooled, as well. “I beg your pardon? I think I can speak on behalf of my sister if I choose to.”</p><p>Her husband showed his teeth. “You cannot speak on behalf of our marriage, however.”</p><p>Interesting, Leah thought as she observed this interplay. She had never considered there might be a territorial dispute between a brother and a husband over her. In a way, it was flattering.</p><p>Regardless, she knew what her position was on it.</p><p>She smiled at her brother gratefully. “Thank you, Oliver, but Bran has a right to be angry. Now that he believes me. I presume you do believe me now?”</p><p>Begrudgingly, Bran nodded. “He doesn’t smell human. But neither does he smell of witch or wizard.”</p><p>“What do I smell like?” For this, Oliver looked between them.</p><p>Leah withdrew her teeth from the bite she was about to take. “Ozone,” she replied shortly. She had known this for years.</p><p>Her husband ‘hmm’d in surprised agreement as if she had answered a question he had been pondering. “Yes, that’s right.”</p><p>“Ozone,” Oliver repeated thoughtfully. He smiled a little. “I suppose that would make sense.”</p><p>Bran wiped his fingers on his napkin. “I would like to turn out attentions to the portrait. Leah told me you suspect her father.”</p><p>“It seemed the most logical. But I cannot believe he would willingly harm his blood.” Oliver squinted at her and finished off the last square of his sandwich, chased it with a glug of beer. “But the portrait was sorcerer magic.”</p><p>“Trapped energy, you said. A witch could do that.”</p><p>“Could they?” Oliver countered, almost aggressively curious. “A spell, trapped between the layers of a portrait, ready to detonate at an unspecified time?”</p><p>Rather than take this as an offense, Bran seemed to think about it. He swirled his beer bottle slowly. “Some witches could do that. A black witch, definitely. A very nuanced white witch, possibly.”</p><p>Witches. Fantastic. Leah couldn’t eat any more. She pushed her plate to the side. “Maybe there is a more prosaic answer. A cousin inherited everything. The house in Beacon Hill and I suppose all its contents. I took nothing but my clothes and jewelry. It’s not so long ago and it <em>was</em> a Copley. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so challenging to trace it, see whose hands it ended up in.”</p><p>For some reason, this made Bran smile a little. “Do you remember the cousin’s name?”</p><p>“Yes. He was an Emerson. Thomas,” she added as it came to her in a flash of inspiration.</p><p>“And the address?”</p><p>“That I know, too. I presume it’s still there.” It had been a newly built area when Leah had lived there, equipped with all the modern conveniences. Now it was a historic area, preserved for its Colonial charm.</p><p>“So we shall start there.” Bran finished his beer and gestured to Oliver. “Another?”</p><p>“Please.”</p><p>*</p><p>Bran showed her the picture of the house on Google Maps.</p><p>“It looks so small.” She leaned over the cell phone, zooming in on the black-trim windows as if she could see inside. There was scaffolding up, which got in the way a little.</p><p>“Small?” Bran scoffed. “Hardly. It’s a five floor townhouse in the most exclusive area of Boston. Even back then it would have been extensive.”</p><p>Leah ignored this. He knew what she meant. The memories of the past were often exaggerated and, practically speaking, their present house was significantly more spacious. She had been very unhappy in that house and it loomed large in her memories. </p><p>Bran finished brushing his teeth and turned off the light and came to stand beside her bed. She was momentarily distracted by watching his fingers scratch the toned muscles of his abdomen. Her eyes flicked up to find a knowing look on his face. She almost shrugged. There could be no question that she found him attractive. She always had. In her eyes, his physical appeal was unparalleled.</p><p>“Do you forgive me?” Leah asked as a distraction, blinking up at him and shaking her hair back.</p><p>Her husband’s gaze darkened. “You haven’t actually apologized.”</p><p>“I apologize,” she said quickly.</p><p>He huffed out an amused breath and climbed on the bed, crawling towards her. “Again, I would point out the discrepancy. If I had done the same to you, I would be suffering for it.”</p><p>She couldn’t deny it. “You’re just a much better person than I,” she joked half-heartedly.</p><p>Bran leaned closer to Leah and sniffed her, which was unexpected enough that she smiled coquettishly at him. “Surely you know what I smell like?”</p><p>“Yes. Like me. But maybe—” Bran put his face in the crook of her neck and she leaned into him happily, an automatic response to any physical attention from him.</p><p>Bran drew back, a frown on his forehead. “I don’t know. I can’t discern if there’s a similarity.”</p><p>There was always a degree of nature as well as nurture in scents. She could tell that Sam and Charles were Bran’s, though she could also tell them apart. “You mean—oh, well, we do have different mothers.”</p><p>“I didn’t realize.”</p><p>“We didn’t really get around to talking about it.” Leah lay back, dropping his cell phone on the rug beside her bed. She stretched, her arms above her head, her t-shirt riding high to expose the edge of her lace panties.</p><p>Bran accepted this invitation for what it was and draped himself on his side alongside her, head propped up on his hand. He ran his hand up her thigh and stroked his thumb over her underwear lightly. “Tell me about your mother.”</p><p>She eyed him suspiciously. Clearly Bran had decided on a new form of interrogation. “I don’t know anything about her. My father stole me away when I was a few weeks old. She was sorcerer— you know, I think I would prefer to talk about this after.”</p><p>“Mmm-hmm,” he said, pushing up her T-shirt until it was bunched up above her breasts. She heard him rub his feet together with anticipation. “She was a sorcerer?</p><p>Leah sighed. “No. There aren’t female sorcerers,” she amended as he nosed under her left breast, kissing the crease, “Very much a male-only club. I’m a peculiar anomaly.” She wove her fingers into his hair and closed her eyes, taking a moment to enjoy the renewed attentions of her mate. It had felt wrong, these last few days, living with him but not <em>being</em> with him.</p><p>He kissed his way across her torso, draping his thigh over hers and curving his fingers around her breast. “So you say. But perhaps the female of this misogynist species is just misunderstood.” He took her nipple into his mouth and sucked. Hard.</p><p>Leah attempted to curl forward at the shot of pain-pleasure that run through her but this position did not allow much in the way of movement. He could be very heavy when he chose to be. “Ah! Maybe.”</p><p>Bran did it again, then scraped his teeth down the underside of her breast. She shivered. “I’m trying to decide how I want to have you tonight,” he said with academic candor, breath hot on her skin.</p><p>Her heart skipped a beat. Or, more accurately, the beat moved down lower. She flexed her hands in his hair, nails digging into his scalp. “Oh?”</p><p>“I’m of course open to suggestions.”</p><p>Leah’s brain was suddenly overwhelmed with images. Every act, every position, every way they’d had each other rushing forwards on a wave of pure lust. But he knew that. Of course he knew that. She tugged on his hair, dragging his head up so she could see the darkly satisfied look on his face. “Absolute tease,” she told him, lifting her head to kiss him.</p><p>Her mate crawled up her body and their tongues tangled, mouths pushing and pulling at each other in a tug of war they both knew intimately. Bran made her feel wanton, a woman who <em>wanted</em> so much.</p><p>She shed her clothes in between kisses and pushed at the elastic waist of his pajamas pants, desperate for him. Pleasingly, he wasn’t without his own show of need; as their kisses grew more heated, she could hear his panting breaths, scent the pungent smell of his desire. Her underwear was a lost cause – she heard the rip as he yanked too hard and cupped her mound, sliding his thumb down her crease.</p><p>Leah bit his ear and then scraped her nails down the back of his head. He loved that. “My suggestion is – fast,” she whispered against his skin, arching into his hand.</p><p>He kissed her, a push of wet tongue, and sucked her bottom lip into his mouth. “I concur.”</p><p>Reaching between them, Leah took hold of his cock and guided him to her, wrapping her legs around his hips. He pushed, a little too eager, and the head slipped upwards, brushing her clit, so she teased herself – and him – for a little longer, rubbing him up and down the wet crease. Too long, apparently. “Killing me,” he murmured, licking her neck and reaching down to take control from her.</p><p>She laughed, or as close as she could get to it as he slid inch by inch inside of her and the sound caught in her throat. For a moment, he held himself still and she clenched around him, relishing the feeling of fullness, of rightness. This was the moment she found herself thinking of when she thought of their intimacies. This moment, when he was part of her and belonged to no one but her. Then there was nothing but the sound of their panting breaths, their racing hearts, the slickly wet noise of his thrusts as their hips kissed, as she instinctively rose to meet him, to bring him back to her.</p><p>Oddly, given the frantic way they had started, now that they were one the mood changed. She found herself winding her arms about him, holding him close, and he pressed kisses to every inch of skin his mouth could touch. They were barely separated, moving together like one creature, lost in the sensation.</p><p>A knot of heat began to form at the heart of the friction they were creating and she caught his mouth. “Going to come soon,” she whispered, smoothing a hand down the side of his face and cupping the back of his neck.</p><p>“Me too.” Brow furrowed with concentration, Bran adjusted her slightly, lifting her hips and spreading her legs wider and just that deeper angle triggered her climax, one from deep within, a tight ripple that became a wave of shuddering pleasure.</p><p>He pressed his mouth to the corner of hers and his thrusts became unbalanced as he came closer to his own release. He made one last fulsome thrust and then held himself steady, braced above her, trembling with his eyes closed and his mouth parted, his whole face clearing.</p><p>Leah stroked his hair, stroked down his damp back, and then when he relaxed, cuddled him close.</p><p>The words – <em>I love you</em> – were on the tip of her tongue, like they always were. She held them back, literally biting down, until the moment passed.</p><p>*</p><p>As their resident investigator, Charles was briefed on digging into Thomas Emerson. He was given a photograph of the painting, which Bran had apparently taken for reasons known only to himself, and instructed to investigate the possible routes by which a portrait painted by John Singleton Copley might have ended up in their hands. However briefly. </p><p>Charles was not a stupid man and he glanced at the photograph, looked at Leah, and then said nothing.</p><p>“This might take some digging,” he said to his da. “But it’s the sort of social history that Anna enjoys. May I involve her?”</p><p>Bran nodded shortly, without conferring with Leah. “Obviously, as it involves Leah’s past, we would do well to keep things on the down low, as the expression goes. Though presumably you had no real engagement with this cousin?”</p><p>She shook her head. Her father had allowed her limited society after her mourning period was over. She seemed to vaguely recall that Thomas had written to her but couldn’t remember the details. Presumably it had been little more than his condolences.</p><p>“Might I know the context of this request?” Charles asked, ever the polite and obedient son of the Alpha.</p><p>Again, Bran did not confer with her. “Not yet.”</p><p>Charles was well practiced at taking such instructions from his father and he barely batted an eyelid. There was a muscle Leah watched for in his jaw however – and it ticked as she knew it would. Some day soon there would be a reckoning between Bran and his son. She knew it. Bran knew it. Perhaps Charles did not yet.</p><p>“You could have told him,” she said, after her step-son had departed.</p><p>Her husband affected surprise. “Remarkably generous of you.”</p><p>“He is your son.” Leah shrugged. “He is trustworthy.”</p><p>“Thank you.”</p><p>“I suppose it has nothing to do with you, actually,” she replied drily, standing.</p><p>Bran smirked. “I know that. I will give him the bare bones, then, once he has briefed Anna. It might be relevant.”</p><p>She did intend to leave but a thought popped into her head and she paused in the door. “Do you often go through my phone bill?” she asked. “Or was it a spur of the moment thing?”</p><p>Bran, tellingly, froze – his hand on the lid of his laptop. </p><p>Leah was genuinely surprised. She turned back and decided to close the door behind her. “You do.”</p><p>Carefully, Bran started to arrange the detritus on his desk. A notepad <em>just so</em>. His favorite pen adjacent. The phone angle wasn’t quite right. “You know I am very paranoid.”</p><p>A paranoid control freak, no less. A special combination, one he claimed had led to his longevity. What she had failed to apparently realize was that <em>she</em> was a subject of his paranoia. She really would never have thought it. Well. She supposed before Sage she would never would have thought it. “Yes but… always? Or just since the witches?”</p><p>“Always. And,” with an air of a man ripping off a band aid, Bran exhaled, “before that I looked at the numbers called from the landline. And before you had your own email, I’d look at who you were emailing. Not at the contents, it never went that far. Just… the receiver.”</p><p>She blinked at him. Bran looked at her expectantly. “I’m trying to decide if I’m angry,” she said, in the echoing silence. “Or just oddly sympathetic.”</p><p>“Really? I’d expected you to be furious. I would be,” Bran added wonderingly. She had surprised him again.</p><p>Leah waved a hand expansively. If she’d had the facility to read his phone bill, she would probably have done it. But she had never really had anything to hide from him so the fact that he did invade her privacy in such a way was strangely less concerning. They shared a bed for God’s sake, what did she care if he was curious enough to see who she was calling. He could have <em>asked</em>, of course. But that was not the nature of their marriage. Or Bran, who liked to theorize on his own and come to his own conclusions. “What were you looking for?”</p><p>“Repetitive numbers or patterns.” Bran shrugged. He still looked kind of squirmy, which was an unusual look for him. “Perhaps numbers that I recognized and were unexpected. There was a while when you were calling Asil a great deal.”</p><p>She narrowed her eyes in thought. <em>She</em> certainly wouldn’t call Asil a great deal. “I – oh, no. When Kara lived with us. She didn’t have a cell so I encouraged her to use mine when she wanted to speak to him.” She smirked, finding a parallel in their behaviors. “<em>I</em> liked to monitor her conversations with him.”</p><p>Bran’s face cleared. “That explains that.”</p><p>“What did you imagine instead?”</p><p>His eyes slanted down to the left. “I’d rather not say.”</p><p>Leah nearly laughed. She rested the tips of her fingers on his desk. “Truly? You thought I was having an affair with <em>Asil?</em>”</p><p>“You <em>do</em> find him attractive. You made that very clear from the beginning. Your current antagonism could be interpreted as some kind of sexual tension,” he muttered, picking up the pen he had just arranged to his specifications and rolling it between his fingers.</p><p>She did laugh then. It grew funnier the more she thought about it. <em>Asil</em>. Of all people. He was right, of course. She had flirted with Asil, to her regret. “How did you think we would hide that from you?”</p><p>Bran’s mouth quirked, reluctantly. “Asil is an old wolf. He would know how.”</p><p>“It sounds like an utterly suicidal thing to do. Bran. I would sooner chew off my own arm.”</p><p>“Rationally, I <em>do</em> know that. I <em>do</em> trust you, despite recent evidence to the contrary.” He rubbed his face. “I—  don’t get a lot of sleep, Leah. I apologize.”</p><p>Leah knew he had a jealous streak. He was an Alpha. He hid it better than most but she had always been able to get a rise from him if she wanted to. It had just taken her a long, long time to realize that the reaction she was getting was not making her feel any better. It wasn’t specifically her that he was jealous of. It was just that in wolf terms she was his. There was nothing emotional about it, just territorial instincts that Bran himself hated.</p><p>“Thank you for not—” Bran waved an arm around and then rested it on his laptop. “Taking this as poorly as it deserves.”</p><p>“You’re welcome.” Tentatively, Leah made a suggestion, one which might have seemed obvious to anyone but him, “In future, when you’re tired and quite paranoid, perhaps you could just speak to me?”</p><p>Bran nodded, somewhat over eagerly. “I would prefer to do that.” He touched his fingers lightly to his chest, as if it was his wolf who was bothering him, and then opened his laptop briskly. “I’ve a meeting.”</p><p>She was dismissed, then. “Of course.”</p><p>*</p><p>She hadn’t expected the next occasion to come so soon.</p><p>“What number is this?” Bran asked her, holding out a piece of paper on which he had scrawled a phone number.</p><p>Leah stared at it. It wasn’t immediately familiar – all she knew was that it wasn’t the number of anyone in the pack. “Should I know it?” she asked, taking it from him.</p><p>“I mean.” Bran pulled a face, wrinkling his nose and looking to the left. Squirmy, she thought. “You have called it a few times. It’s a Montana number but I don’t recognize it.”</p><p>“Oh. Really?” She reached for her cell phone. Then she paused. “Did you not try calling it yourself?” Leah asked, curious about his thinking process.</p><p>“My paranoia doesn’t actually allow me to be <em>active</em> about it. It would be… unworthy of you.”</p><p>She snorted and typed the number into her cell. “That’s a fine line, Bran.” The fertility clinic popped up from her contacts. She sighed, humor ebbing away, replaced with – oh – a hot, tight feeling in her chest. “Would you accept that it’s not a man and let us move on?”</p><p>Bran’s jaw twitched and then he assumed a carefully blank expression. “If you wish.”</p><p>That was a screaming ‘no’, she decided.</p><p>Leah exhaled and decided she couldn’t look at him whilst she revealed this humiliating piece of information. She stared at the television screen, paused on a Netflix show she had been watching with desultory interest. “Fine. A while back, I froze some eggs, for the purpose of – well, you know – but there was a problem at the fertility clinic. Nitrogen or something. So, they’re no longer viable. I’ve been dealing with some follow-up calls and so on. That’s the number of the clinic.”</p><p>The silence was so deafening that she heard him swallow.  </p><p>Pressing her lips together, Leah kept her gaze on the television, not even allowing herself to look at Bran out of the corner of her eye. She didn’t want to know what expression he had permitted himself to reveal. Pity, most likely. Disgust at the idea? Disappointment in her for such a fanciful thought?</p><p>No, she didn’t want to add that to her unbearable shame. “You can go now,” she said into the silence.</p><p>Bran took orders from no one but he didn’t hesitate. He walked back to his office. After a moment, she heard the door close quietly behind him and then she was alone once more.</p><p>Unsurprisingly, Leah found she was no longer interested in the television show. A lump began to form in her throat and, panicking, she threw herself up out of the seat. She needed to distract herself. She pressed play on the show anyway so she could have some background noise and started to unzip the cushion covers on the couches. “Going to wash these,” she said to herself out loud, swallowing down the sensation building. She would not, absolutely <em>not</em>, cry. It was a useless expression of emotion and she had cried enough over this one topic, she really had.</p><p>She had been delicately managing her feelings on the lost opportunity of her fertility almost all her life. First, as a human who failed to deliver on the expectations of the 18<sup>th</sup> Century marriage contract, through no fault of her own. And now, as a werewolf, when ironically that possibility was at least fractionally better – thanks to the healing powers of <em>becoming</em> a werewolf and the advances of medical science.</p><p>The issue was she was now with a man who did not want more children or perhaps did not want more children specifically with Leah.</p><p>For a short while, she had fooled herself, thinking that Bran’s position might have changed. They had been getting on better. Kara had been living with them. It had felt like— well, she had been unbearably, <em>stupidly </em>naïve and it was that naiveté she was most ashamed of. Imagine, more than two centuries on the earth and she could still be that stupid. She had paid thousands of dollars of her own savings for this stupidity.</p><p>Leah worked quickly, stripping cushions and tossing them into a pile. Then she marched them into the laundry room and stuffed them into the drum of the washer. After this, she would clean her bathroom. The floor was in need of a really good scrub; she’d been meaning to do that for ages, really get into the grout with a brush. Then she would do Bran’s, though he usually took care of that. She’d vacuum and dust the guest room – <em>not a nursery</em> –</p><p>“Holy crap,” she muttered as the lump reformed in her throat, her eyes burning. What was wrong with her? She was <em>not</em> this vulnerable, sentimental person.</p><p>Leah pressed her palms against her eyes, pushing until it hurt. She needed a better distraction. Unfortunate, really, that her <em>best</em> distraction was the man she didn’t really want to see or speak to.</p><p>Maybe she could go out and kill something.</p><p>Bran – damn his timing – appeared in the doorway of the laundry, looking grim. “Leah, I—”</p><p>She never found out what he was doing to say. She didn’t want to know what he was going to say – what poor sop he was going to provide in his to attempt to soothe her, to ensure their partnership continued to struggle along. She threw himself at him, silenced him with her mouth, kissing him with all the desperation she felt. Bran did not resist. He kissed her back just as fiercely. As they ricocheted off the door, to the vibrating washer, down to the floor, clothes dropping by the wayside, the few tears that did fall down her face went unnoticed.</p><p>*</p><p>“Lucky for us, Thomas Emersons’ descendants actually lived in the same house until 1922, when Alexander Emerson died without issue and the house went to a distant relative, who sold it and all its contents. Most of the art was initially completely untraceable...”</p><p>Watching Anna talk rather reminded Leah of the times when she had sat whilst Kara presented a school project. Perhaps an essay on one of the various wars America had fought in. Or that art project where she had drawn the pack’s faces. No doubt she was expected to have the same level of enthusiasm for it, too. She glanced over at Charles, who was giving his mate his rapt attention. But then Charles always gave Anna his rapt attention and vice versa.</p><p>“But it occurred to me that there might be some galleries who specialized in 19<sup>th</sup> Century art so I made a few calls and got some additional pointers on private collections in Boston at the time. I found this in…”</p><p>Leah kept getting distracted. Perhaps if Anna had decided to just <em>present</em> her findings, rather than laboriously take them through the process to show how clever she was, she might have been able to pay attention. Instead, she found her mind drifting. From Anna’s knitted cardigan – ugly – to her jeans which were passable, to Charles’s shoes, to the rug under Bran’s desk that needed replacing but he wouldn’t let her, to Bran himself who was looking through his cell phone and not paying attention either.</p><p>“… and then with the help of a nice women at Greenwich Auction house, we found a description of a painting that sounds <em>like</em> yours in an auction lot in 1972.” Anna read directly from her notebook. “<em>I</em><em>n the manner of John Singleton Copley, American, 1737-1815, Gentleman and young Lady in blue</em>, <em>Oil on canvas, Unsigned.</em> And it references the Collection of Hugh and Joyce Murphy, who were the private buyers we <em>think</em> bought it…”</p><p>Leah tried to focus again. “Sounds encouraging,” she managed because Bran had taken her to task <em>many times</em> for not trying with Anna, whom he referred to as ‘their’ daughter-in-law as if he had ever once considered her to be a mother figure to Charles.</p><p>Anna held up a finger, her face alight with excitement. “It sold, as with a number of other things, to another private buyer, a man called Lawrence Dennis. Who was basically just a small time, hobby collector. I looked him up. He still lives in Boston. He’s a retired surgeon. When I described the painting to him, he remembered it. Down to the last detail. But it was stolen in 1983.” </p><p>Bran finally put down his phone. “Stolen.”</p><p>“Yup,” Anna said, enunciating the ‘p’ very hard.</p><p>Leah looked around the room, failing to see the significance. “Isn’t this more annoying than anything else? Now we don’t know who had it.”</p><p>Her husband – everyone – ignored this. “Did they steal anything else?”</p><p>“No. <em>Just</em> this painting, which Dr. Dennis said was extremely strange as he had – in his words – a modest collection, with some significantly more valuable pieces. It was actually in the newspaper. It reads like a locked room mystery.” She held up the article – nothing more than a column of two hundred words and a small picture, presumably of Dr. Dennis.</p><p>Bran took this from her, skimming the contents, as he tapped his fingers on his desk. “Interesting. So someone in the 80s traced this specific painting to him.”</p><p>“Yes. I mean – it wasn’t too difficult to <em>find</em> the painting if you knew what to do,” Anna said, belying the impression she had given of hours of laborious research. “But doesn’t it seem oddly specific? Why this painting?”</p><p>“I guess we don’t know that it was only this painting,” Leah said slowly, attempting to think more broadly as she had observed Bran did. “It wasn’t the only piece of art he commissioned. He had several other portraits done of himself. Did you trace any of the other assets sold in 1922?”</p><p>Anna shook her head, considering the matter seriously. “No, I really only focused on this painting. But there were some other leads I could follow-up on. You’re theorizing that someone went out and tried to reclaim the property? That they were trying to find the whole collection.”</p><p>“Maybe. I can’t, of course, imagine why.”</p><p>Anna cleared her throat and cast Charles a distinctly awkward look before she landed this on Leah. “On that… we had Wellesley look at the photo of the painting for his opinion and he said that Copley was notable for depicting artifacts in his paintings relating to these individuals' lives. Outside of the individuals in the portrait, there was a curtain backdrop, which is fairly standard. But you’re holding a book that he thinks might be meaningful and there’s also a desk with a letter in the corner.”</p><p>Now everyone was looking at Leah. Expectantly. Bran even put down the newspaper article.</p><p>“I don’t recall anything being meaningful. I wasn’t involved in the staging of the piece. That was Copley.” She frowned as she tried to remember. Hadn’t she just been told she was sitting for a portrait? It was fairly standard practice for newly married couples of a certain class. Or pretense to class. “Probably.”</p><p>“Perhaps it would help if you looked?” Anna suggested gently.</p><p>Leah exhaled. “Oh, very well. Someone give me a device, then. I’m sure you all have copies of it by now.”</p><p>Bran held out his cell, already set to the photograph. Thankfully he had zoomed in on the book, though she was certainly braced for an intimate view of a man she had loathed.</p><p>She inspected the book. “Well, that’s the Bible,” she said, recognizing the symbol on the front. Naturally. “I would imagine it was my husband’s family bible, too. So nothing to do with me.”</p><p>Leah moved the photo around. She’d barely looked at the portrait after it had been completed. By then she had been several months married and more than aware of the mistake she had been forced to make. Each month she didn’t announce she had conceived resulted in a sound beating and then a week of threatening silence. She was in no mood to pretend to admire them as a couple.</p><p>She looked at the so-called letter, angled across the desk. Again, it was meaningless to her. There weren’t even any discernable letters, just the inference of a scrawl. She zoomed out again.</p><p>And stopped.</p><p>The desk that Copley had duplicated had been her writing desk. It had sat in the little room that had been designated her personal space – for tea with other ladies, for reading and correspondence, needlework, meetings with the household staff. It had come, as with a number of other items, from her father’s house. The pattern of the gilt scrollwork on the side was that looping spiral of the Golden Ratio. It was a common design – in nature as well as in the hands of artists and creators.</p><p>It was not, however, a common design in a sorcerer’s home. The Golden Ratio had meaning and purpose. It wasn’t merely decorative.</p><p>Reluctantly, Leah zoomed out on the picture some more until she could take the whole image in. She relaxed her focus, tried to look at the painting with the eyes of a neutral party than the emotions of her then-teenage self. The man had been dead for longer than she had been a werewolf. It <em>didn’t</em> matter what he had done to her. This 2D representation was all that was left of him and she had a bigger job to do now.</p><p>Her dress trim was embroidered with the same pattern. The curl of her hair at her temples was the same. His waistcoat…</p><p>Leah rested the phone on her lap, now frowning heavily. “I’ve noticed something peculiar.”</p><p>“Do you know, we guessed,” Bran said mildly.</p><p>She spared him a dismissive look. “Much of sorcery is math based. Equations and symbols that hold meaning and power if you carry the right blood. The Golden Ratio is one of the most powerful. It’s— everywhere in this painting. It’s on my dress. His waistcoat. This piece of furniture— it came from my father’s house.” She zoomed in on it again. “I can’t remember it exactly but I know it would never have had that carving on it. Copley must have added it, which means someone must have asked for it.”</p><p>And she hadn’t the faintest idea <em>who. </em>Surely not her husband? According to her father, he had been a dud like her. <em>But maybe two duds can make something useful of themselves</em>, he’d sneered at her.</p><p>Bran continued to look unmoved, a faintly disbelieving expression on his face. “So, what, this symbol is a red flag for anyone who sees it?” His eyebrow rose. “X marks the spot? Sorcerers be here?”</p><p>She was being mocked. She pouted. “I don’t know why <em>this</em> is so challenging for you to believe.”</p><p>“Wouldn’t Oliver have noticed it, when he was investigating it in the trunk of your car?” her husband asked lightly.</p><p>“Perhaps his mind was on other, more obvious things,” Leah said through her teeth. “There’s no need to be quite so much of an asshole about this.”</p><p>Both Charles and Anna jerked in surprise.</p><p>Bran’s mouth shaped into a slight moue of distaste but he otherwise did not take her to task for disrespecting him in front of others. “I am merely playing devil’s advocate.”</p><p>“Perhaps you could just attempt to be supportive instead?” Leah suggested, tartly. “And take what I’m saying at face value for once in our married life?”</p><p>“Should we leave you to this?” Charles interjected sternly. Not without reason, too, for Bran’s eyes had kindled and he looked on the edge of a retort. She felt triumphant. Nothing was better than getting a rise out of him.</p><p>Her husband waved his fingers as if to say <em>carry on.</em></p><p>“So,” Anna said bracingly, a full-wattage Omega smile in her voice if not on her face, “who do we think would have briefed Copley to paint the symbols on?”</p><p>“It’s possible <em>he</em> did it.”</p><p>“Copley?”</p><p>“No. My husband. He knew something of the sorcerers in his family tree. He was proud of it. It was how my father arranged the marriage. He thought our offspring would make him money.” Leah, who’d kept her thumb moving on the screen of Bran’s phone so it wouldn’t lock, glanced down at the photograph again. “Maybe he requested it. Again, I don’t know why.”</p><p>“Well. Let’s leave that mystery to percolate,” Bran suggested with false brightness. He rested his chin on his propped up hand and fixed his laser-like gaze on Anna. “Who bought the house after 1922, Anna?”</p><p>“Ernest Featherby.”</p><p>“Charming. Anything interesting about him?”</p><p>Anna picked up her notepad and flicked through it a few pages. “He lived there for eight years. He was a pilot. Then it was bought by Ralph and Allegra Houston. They sold it two years later. <em>Then</em> it was bought by Emmanuel Cohen but he only lived there for eight months before it was— you know,” Anna’s cheeks turned pink with excitement, “now that I look at this, that’s a really high turnaround. After Featherby, no one ever lived there for longer than a couple of years. That’s strange.”</p><p>“Does someone live there now?”</p><p>“It’s currently owned by Henry Patterson but I’m not sure he’s ever actually lived in the house. He renovated it a couple of years ago. Split it into three apartments. All occupied.”</p><p>Leah recalled the scaffolding she had seen in the photograph of Google Maps.</p><p>Bran continued with his lateral thinking. “Do we know anything about this Henry Patterson?”</p><p>Anna shook her head and, by silent agreement, Charles reached into his laptop bag, pulled out his sleek laptop. As he started tap tap tapping away, Anna feeding him information, Leah pinched and un-pinched the photo on the phone screen. Then, deciding she was sick of looking at it, she flicked the photo away, just as she would have done on her own cell, a habitual gesture more than a conscious thought.</p><p>She and Bran didn’t look through each other’s cell phones, though she had certainly been tempted in the past. And now, knowing what she knew about her husband’s little phone bill habit, she suspected it was the same for him. So it was with some curiosity that she surveyed the grid of photos that surrounded the portrait picture, her slow brain taking them in with growing surprise.</p><p>“May I have my phone back, Leah?”</p><p>Swallowing down her reaction, Leah dragged her eyes away from the screen to meet his. Clearly he had seen her. His hand was held out expectantly, fingers wiggling.</p><p>She handed the cell phone back to him, unhurried. He placed the phone, screen down, on his desk and looked back at Charles.</p><p>Charles flipped his laptop around. “He was easy to find,” he said, as his screen displayed a social media page.</p><p>Bran grunted. “Ah.”</p><p>Henry’s profile picture was of a curly-haired, redheaded man with dark eyes behind circular glasses. “That’s Fox Anderson,” Leah said, resigned.</p><p>“The conspiracist?”</p><p>“Not so much,” Bran said drily, “as it turns out.”</p><p>*</p><p>Whilst Charles used his magic fingers to rustle up more information on Fox Anderson / Henry Patterson – a process that by the intense frown on Charles’s face was unexpectedly more difficult than he had thought - Leah prepared some sandwiches for lunch. She ate hers standing, looking out of the living room window, whilst Bran and Anna chatted inconsequentially.</p><p>“Let me go see how he’s doing,” Anna sighed. They had left Charles in Bran’s office, making irritated noises at his computer.</p><p>Bran retreated to the kitchen and, sensing an opportunity, Leah followed him. She put plates into the dishwasher as he sprayed the kitchen counters with cleaner.</p><p>As usual, he pre-empted her conversational topic. He wasn’t psychic, he often told her. She was just predictable. “Don’t read anything into it. It’s just a coping mechanism for the wolf when I travel.” Bran said it dismissively because she was expected to dismiss it.</p><p>Leah wasn’t going to dismiss it. He had <em>hundreds</em> of photographs of her on his cell phone. “What does that mean?”</p><p>Bran shrugged. “If he’s restless, it’s helpful to see you. A copying mechanism,” he repeated blithely.</p><p>So, photos of her were, what, like Tylenol? She pictured Bran across the country, perhaps sitting in his hotel room, flicking through photos of her for his wolf. Soothing him. It was— so, <em>so</em> unlikely, she thought. Unless she put another spin on it and imagined him scrolling <em>angrily</em>. Annoyed that this was the solution to his weakness.</p><p>Yes. That worked.</p><p>Her mate was trying far, far too hard to be blasé about this. Meticulously cleaning the kitchen counters, swiping crumbs into the trash. Busy.</p><p>Leah leaned against the counter, folded her arms across her chest. “May I see them again, please?” she asked.</p><p>She saw the hesitation in the line of his shoulders. Oh, he really didn’t want to. This was <em>fascinating.</em></p><p>“If you must.” Bran pulled his cell out of his pocket, unlocked it, and handed it to her. He reached under the counter to get the little brush Leah used to detail around the stove.</p><p>Casually, Leah opened his photos app. She scrolled to her name and opened the album. Without clicking on any in particular, she flicked through the grid. He did occasionally take photos and he had, laboriously, cropped her image from various group shots. Often not even very <em>good</em> pictures, at least to her mind. She wasn’t even looking at the camera in most of them.</p><p>She closed the photo app, put the phone down. Bran was scrubbing up a storm around the stove. “When did you discover that this worked?”</p><p>He paused, then seemed to really focus on a corner, scrubbing hard. She cleaned the stove daily. It was <em>not</em> that dirty. “Maybe the 80s? Whenever I started travelling more frequently.” He cleared his throat. “I had a photo in my wallet.”</p><p>Fascinating. “I think that’s fine now,” she said mildly, nodding to the stove. “But if you’re in the mood for it, the refrigerator could do with a clean.”</p><p>Bran cast her a dirty look. She smiled, widely and then she batted her eyelashes at him. “I can send you better photos.”</p><p>Her flirtation missed the mark. It usually did. “What I have is fine.” He opened the fridge, every line of his body taut with tension. With annoyance.</p><p>Leah knew he was reaching the end of his tolerance for this topic. She could tell he felt it was crossing a line – that perhaps <em>he</em> had crossed a line and now she knew about it. They both knew she was always looking for a chink in his emotional armor. Or had been. She wasn’t sure she did any more.</p><p>She sighed and pushed herself off the counter. “It’s all right, Bran, I’m not <em>reading anything into it. </em>I know better. You can relax.”</p><p>Bran said nothing. He was taking things out of the fridge now, keeping his back to her. Sighing, she left him to it.  </p><p>*</p><p>Eventually, Charles summoned them. “Older than he looks,” Bran’s son grunted, spinning the laptop around so they could all take a gander at what he’d pulled up beyond the private social media page.</p><p>Anna agreed, leaning forward to peer at the screen, tucking her wavy hair behind her ears. “From that photo, no way would I put him in his sixties.”</p><p>Leah raised her eyebrows at Bran. “I only caught a glimpse of him. You met with him. Would you have said he was middle aged?”</p><p>Bran thought about it and then admitted, “I’m a terrible judge of age but I would have said younger, I think.”</p><p>Charles moved on. “Well, I’ve gone through his finances. He has family wealth, obviously, but a chunk of his income comes through the advertising on his forum that originally we all so enjoyed.” Both he and his father sent Leah a flicker of judgment, which she ignored.</p><p>“He bought Leah’s house in the late 70s but as Anna pointed out, never lived there. From what I can see, he bought it cheap and I would imagine it wasn’t in particularly good condition. It isn’t the only property he owns – he has a portfolio of others, which he flips and either sells for a profit or rents. I didn’t have to look very hard for the construction company who eventually did the work on the house – Google Maps was helpful on that front. I told them I was thinking of investing in a property in the area and saw that they had done work on a nearby house and did they have any opinions on the general construction.”</p><p>Here, Charles smirked. “<em>Sean</em> was more than happy to describe the situation. Elated, in fact. Ecstatic. As well as the general disrepair of a house of that age standing empty for several decades, they were plagued by mysterious mishaps. Machinery breaking, things disappearing. Several of the crew came down with illnesses. They found symbols carved under floorboards, painted behind walls. The owner told Sean the property had originally been owned by members of a cult and he paid through the nose for them to finish the work. Sean then hurried to say that this obviously wasn’t the standard for all houses in the area, Apparently, once they gutted the place, it was all fine. I then got a hard sell for their services and I have a PDF of their best work if you’d like to see?”</p><p>Bran smiled and leaned back in his chair, momentarily distracted. “Sounds like a character. We have a hotel in Boston.”</p><p>“And a contractor already on retainer,” Charles responded neatly. “So. We have a link between a conspiracist and Leah’s past that also seems to fit with the timing of the portrait being stolen. I presume you did the usual trick with him when he came here.” He waved a finger around in a circle.</p><p>Naturally, Bran didn’t bring people to their home without taking precautions. As well as taking a circular route to get the measure of his ‘guest’, he also expanded his facility to be entirely forgettable to the journey itself. Guests would arrive with a very vague idea of the route taken, even unable to describe the house itself afterwards.</p><p>“Is it possible it’s a coincidence? That he saw Leah here and recognized her?” Anna suggested. Her mouth quirked. “From this ‘cult’?”</p><p>Leah thought back to the brief nanosecond she had made eye contact with Fox Anderson / Henry Patterson. It didn’t <em>feel</em> like it had been long enough to make that kind of connection. Did she look so much like the girl in the painting? She’d never felt she had particularly distinctive features, that by her very symmetry she was unmemorable. And a painting was very different from a real-life human.</p><p>“He would have had to know that it was possible for me to live this long,” she murmured, slowly joining the dots together. “Which means he’d either have to know about the lifespan of a sorcerer or, indeed, a werewolf. Otherwise – why would you put the two together?”</p><p>Naturally, no one had an answer for that but Bran leaned forward and opened his laptop, hitting keys to enter his password. “I’ve been going back through the posts on the forum, now that I know he’s not a total crackpot,” again, Leah was aware of the weight of his comment on her, “focusing on conversations in which he in particular is interested.”</p><p>“Which is a lot,” Anna added.</p><p>“Indeed. This forum dates back nearly thirty years so I’ve been creating a timeline – noting down information he shares, any theories. What has interested me in particular is his inconsistencies. He makes one statement and then a few years later, when the topic or question is asked again, he makes a slightly different one. The time travel, for instance. He purported in 1996 that a sorcerer can travel back and forward in time. In 2003 he amends this to say they can only travel to their past.” Bran raised his notepad, showing his dense scrawl drawn along a horizontal line. “That’s just one example. I found several. To me, this feels like he has a source.”</p><p>Leah shook her head. “It can’t be a sorcerer. The only two in existence are my brother and father. And there isn’t a chance in hell either of them would leak information that way. It would be like a werewolf going to the press. There’s a code.”</p><p>“Leah,” Anna wondered, “why do you think there are only two sorcerers left?”</p><p>She opened her mouth to make a rebuke at the implication that she might be mistaken and had to snap it back. Anna was right. Lord how she hated it when Anna was right. “I suppose I don’t know for certain.” An agonizing thing to admit with them all looking at her. “It’s what has been implied to me all my life.”</p><p>“What if your father was trying to find other sorcerers? Would this be a way of drawing them out?”</p><p>“Real sorcerers can’t really use the internet,” Leah said, wrinkling her nose. “After a while, Oliver shorts most things. Cell phones. Laptops. Doesn’t really suit him.” He used a lot of internet cafes.</p><p>“Your father wouldn’t have to. Not if he was using Henry,” Anna pointed out.</p><p>“I guess. It seems… out of character.”  </p><p>“Did you tell Oliver about the forum?”</p><p>“I… did. But I can’t say he was very interested.” She looked at Bran’s desk, the piece of paper he had been writing his snippets of information on. “Maybe I could send him a few things.”</p><p>Bran held out the sheet of paper. “You’re welcome to.”</p><p>She took it. Glancing down, seeing all the theories about sorcerers written so boldly made her feel a little funny. She folded it. “I need to ask him about the symbols drawn in the house. I didn’t know about that.”</p><p>“Maybe something to protect you?” Anna suggested kindly.</p><p>Leah snorted. If true, they had been very ineffective. But Anna didn’t need to know that.</p><p>*</p><p>Whilst she waited for Oliver to call her back – the number she had last used was no longer in service, so she’d emailed him – Leah looked through the forum. She had to do this on Bran’s computer, as Charles said it was more secure. “Da’s computer address is harder to trace,” he said.  </p><p>Bran came in and out of his office whilst she was looking through it, sifting through the crazy to find nuggets of information. She wasn’t particularly focusing on the site owner, though he seemed to be pretty prolific – and awake almost all the time – but just generally trying to get a feel for any characters.</p><p>“There’s a person on here, username <em>starspangledbroomstick</em>, who pretty regularly refutes the more outlandish claims about witches,” she told her mate, who had gone for a corner shelf and was plucking out books.</p><p>“Mmm.” Apparently disinterested, he padded from his office with his books. She heard him in the living room, talking to Juste.</p><p>She typed ‘werewolves’ into the search bar and watched the references stream down the page. Obviously there was a lot of chat about that, given werewolves were now ‘out’, so she sorted by age and read the earliest posts, muttering with annoyance.</p><p>After thirty minutes of this inanity, she noticed that <em>The_Fox</em>, the name the owner went under, was utterly uninterested in werewolves. The only comment he had made was to break up a disagreement between two posters who were cussing each other out over ‘tone’. It was all so public, she thought, reading the dénouement of the argument wHere both were forced to apologize, excruciatingly politely.</p><p><em>The_Fox</em> had an ever-changing series of moderators who policed the forum, encouraging users to abide by the forum etiquette or they would get suspended or, worse, blacklisted.</p><p>She wrote down their names, wondering if they might be important. Then she made another list, writing down all the names of people who discussed the topic of sorcerers before realizing that Bran had probably thought the same. She unfolded his piece of paper and saw, in his neat capitals, he had made a short list of who had actually written ‘correct’ information. Or as correct as Bran knew it.</p><p>Curious, she typed in ‘genetics’ to the search bar. Again, hundreds of forum references turned up. She sighed and started clicking through. <em>Lots</em> of conversation about whether it was possible to be a male witch. The general consensus was ‘no’. <em>The_Fox</em> himself confirmed that, then spouted some absolute bullshit about the moon and women’s cycles and Leah clicked away in disgust. She sifted through more nonsense until she found one post where a user <em>Diggity_Dan</em> claimed he lived next door to a family of witches.</p><p>It was, Leah noted when she clicked on his profile, the last post <em>Diggity_Dan</em> made. She was not the only one who noticed this. <em>Salazars_Purse</em> replied to the post several weeks later. <em>Anyone heard from Dan recently?</em> A few people replied in the negative. <em>Anyone know him IRL? Maybe check on him?</em> Again, the negative.</p><p>“How much money did Charles say he got from this forum?” she called, a suspicion forming.</p><p>Bran padded back down the hall. “He didn’t. He implied it was a large chunk of his current income.”</p><p>“Do you think he could look into it?” Leah looked at the ads down the sides of the forum. Garish, mostly gaming ads. “What if he doesn’t <em>hunt</em> witches? But is paid to gather information for them?” Then expanded this line of thinking. “And wizards and sorcerers too. What if this is… some kind of a front?”</p><p>Bran hovered behind her, leaning on the back of his chair. The old leather creaked. “I have asked him to look more thoroughly into the money around the site.”</p><p>Of course he had. She pointed at the screen. “This man disappeared after claiming he lived next door to witches.”</p><p>Her husband nodded, glancing at the screen. “Poor <em>Diggity_Dan</em>.”</p><p>Obviously it was possible that <em>Diggity_Dan</em>, who had been a member of the forum for nearly ten years, had just decided to move on. Perhaps he got a new hobby. Or got married. Or divorced. Or had any number of life changes that meant the forum suddenly became a smaller part of his life.</p><p>Shaking her head, Leah clicked away from Dan’s profile, back to the search page on genetics. “This site is— endless. I feel like it needs to be properly looked into. Reading it cover to cover would take weeks.”</p><p>“I will commission a report from the company we use to monitor social media. They might be better experienced on how to answer some of our hypotheticals,” Bran sighed. He touched her shoulder. “Come, I’ve made dinner. You should eat something.”</p><p>Bran had clearly moved on from his discomfort about the photographs. They had a nice meal with Juste, who was let in to the discussion about the forum though not given the details of why they were investigating.</p><p>“I understand there are many such places on the internet,” Juste said, scooping up mashed potato which Bran was particularly good at. He used a vast quantity of butter and both riced the potato with a potato ricer before using a whisk to get a really smooth consistency. Leah had on occasion had just a bowl of it on its own for lunch.</p><p>“This one passed me by, somehow,” Bran said, piling more greens on his plate. “I suppose it’s not the biggest. Our focus has always been on the biggest. And the ones that require vetting before you can get access. Those are usually minefields of information.”</p><p>“Then you’ve looked at forums like it before?” she asked, curious.</p><p>“For similar reasons, when I was planning our come out,” Bran said, smiling slightly. “The depths of the internet are where conspiracies begin. For decades, people had been getting too close to the truth.”  </p><p>Bran had baked some apples for dessert, which they had with ice cream, and then they moved into the living room to watch the news once Juste had left. Bran flicked between different news stations, snorting at the difference between the so-called ‘left’ and ‘right’.</p><p>“Later,” her husband said, his eyes fixed on the screen, tapping the remote against his leg, “I’d like to take some new photos of you.”</p><p>Leah’s stomach swooped, connecting his meaning behind ‘later’ and ‘photos’. He was not talking about a nice photo of her smiling. Apparently his ‘moving on’ meant he’d processed this as a new opportunity to diversify his viewing material. “Oh really.”</p><p>He nodded, just a little. Then he turned to look at her, his eyes glinting. “Maybe a little video, too.”</p><p>Again, the swooping, liquefied feeling in her stomach intensified. Nerves and excitement mingled. She wanted to go to bed with him <em>now.</em></p><p>Leah voiced a thought she often had. “No one would believe me if I told them this was what you were like.”</p><p>Bran smiled his sweetest, most innocent smile. Butter wouldn’t melt. “I know.”</p><p>*</p><p>Leah decided it was quite late in her life to discover she had an exhibitionist streak.</p><p>As she went about her usual day-to-day activities the following day she found herself being occasionally struck by a flush of heat as she remembered Bran kneeling between her legs, the flash of his cell phone camera in the dark, and her own knees wobbled in response.</p><p>Mmm. Very late in life, indeed.</p><p>Oliver called on the landline whilst she was out chopping the remaining wood from the snow-felled tree that Bran had cut down, an activity she hoped would calm her. Bran tapped on the kitchen window to get her attention and she tugged off her gloves as she came in through the back door into the kitchen.</p><p>“Leah’s here. You’re on speakerphone,” her husband murmured, putting the phone down on the table.</p><p>She took a seat. “Hello, Oliver.”</p><p>“Hi. If Fox Henry Whatever was truly a sorcerer, like I am, he would be incredibly susceptible to witch magic, and so would have fallen prey to your husband’s particular talents. What’s more he wouldn’t be able to run this kind of internet forum,” Oliver said hastily, and loudly. It sounded as if he was in a car. An old one with a broken heating vent. “Maybe our father has lost his mind and it’s him instead and he’s getting something in return for this nebulous internet information. Who knows.”</p><p>Leah made eye contact with Bran as he leaned against their counter, plucking grapes out of the fruit bowl and popping them into his mouth. He had looked intrigued to know that sorcerers were susceptible to witch magic. “It couldn’t be <em>another</em> sorcerer feeding Henry Patterson information? One we don’t know about.”</p><p>“It’s extremely unlikely, Leah. I—can’t tell you more than that, I’m sorry.”</p><p>At this, Bran tilted his head, eyebrows raising.</p><p>This was not the first time that information had been withheld from her – by him or any other man in her life. She was used to it. Bran was not.</p><p>“Why would there be symbols all over the house? The house in Beacon Hill?”</p><p>Having been clear as a whistle, the line now crackled and at first Leah couldn’t quite make out what Oliver was saying. “I…. over?”</p><p>“Say again?” she said, frowning with irritation and leaning closer to the handset as if that would help.</p><p>“… old….ment—” The line abruptly cleared. “I can be with you tonight. It’s not something I want to say over this damned thing.”</p><p>It was Leah’s turn to tilt her head to the side. “Does that mean you knew about them?”</p><p>Oliver’s sigh was loud, crystal clear. “Ah, Leah, I’m afraid you will not like me very much when I tell you.” Then he was gone.</p><p>She stared at the handset until Bran leaned over and switched it and the monotonous dial tone off.</p><p>“Better not to dwell on it,” Bran advised.</p><p>Leah’s mind was already racing through the possibilities. Oliver had been specific. She would not like <em>him</em>. Had he put them there? How? When? Why? Her first thought – that they had somehow been symbols of protection - now seemed unlikely, not if Oliver predicted it would cause her to dislike him.</p><p>So what? What manner of sorcery had been practiced in her unhappy marital home without her knowledge?</p><p>“Leah,” Bran said, his tone warning. “I suggest you heed my advice. Do not dwell on it.”</p><p>She glowered at him. He knew her better than that.</p><p>It was Bran’s turn to sigh. “Well. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”</p><p>Bran’s words ringing in her ears, Leah <em>tried</em> to heed them. She aggressively finished chopping the last of the wood, then she stacked them with the others in the woodshed to dry off. Winter wood took a long time to dry but they were well stocked for this winter anyway. They wouldn’t need it this year.</p><p>Inside, she changed into her running clothes and stuck her head into Bran’s office. “Going for a run,” she told him.</p><p>He didn’t look up. “Good idea.”</p><p>Her upset at her brother flipped to being upset with him. The patronizing bastard. She shoved this thought at him <em>hard</em>, picturing their mating bond and stuffing it down inside with the hope that he would feel <em>something.</em></p><p>If he did, he was well practiced at ignoring her.</p><p>So Leah ran. She ran for about twenty miles, fueled by anger and frustration and the painfully familiar feeling that she was about to be disappointed by someone she loved <em>again</em>. And she couldn’t stop herself from imagining what it was.</p><p>Her father had used sorcery to control her. Symbols on doors and windows meant she couldn’t unlock them, whereas others could come and go. Once, as a child, she had talked back and he had carved a symbol on her hand that left her unable to speak until it had healed. She had never talked back again.</p><p>After her unexpected firepower at the breakfast table, he had subjected her to weeks of invasive tests as he tried to recreate the incident. Symbols, equations, the smell of her own fear, had followed her for years afterwards, even when she wore her wolf’s fur. It had taken decades to recover. To forget. And now it was back.</p><p>So, what? What could Oliver have done? Something to her? Something to her beast of a husband? What?</p><p>She returned long after dark, sweating, her hair plastered to her head. Bran and a few others were in the living room and she skirted the room to run upstairs, to shower and change. She hadn’t thought to ask Oliver what time he might be arriving. She supposed ‘tonight’ was a broad concept.</p><p>When she emerged from the shower, she found Bran had been in her bedroom and had tossed her dirty things into their shared hamper and she could hear him down the hall in the guest room making the bed.</p><p>She dressed and meandered down, watched as he flicked out the comforter and smoothed it down. “I might not want him to stay,” she said, leaning against the door jamb.</p><p>“Then I shall eject him.” Bran tossed the decorative cushion into the middle of the pillows and then opened the door to the small en suite. She knew it was clean – whilst she didn’t keep fresh linen on the guest beds, she did air them and wipe down the bathrooms regularly. “Though you seem a little calmer.”</p><p>The run and the scalding hot shower had helped, she could admit. It hadn’t got rid of the sick sense of doom but she was feeling less hair-trigger-tempered. She rubbed her temple against the edge of the door jamb. “It was a long time ago.”</p><p>“That’s true.” Bran tossed one of her rolled up towels onto the center of the bed and closed the bathroom door. “I’ve sent everyone away. And I’m roasting a couple of chickens.”</p><p>“Thank you,” she murmured.</p><p>Then, because he was being nice, he gave her a small pat on the shoulder as he passed her in the doorway. She half turned, expecting to follow him, but was caught short when he stopped and darted forward to kiss her. An entirely sweet, closed-mouth affair. She blinked at him, stunned.</p><p>“Whatever happens, I will be there for you,” he told her. He kissed her again, the merest brush, his green-brown eyes open and earnest. “Try to remember that.”</p><p>Leah stood in the doorway a full five minutes after he left, lips tingling.</p><p>*</p><p>They’d actually gone to bed by the time Oliver’s rust-bucket of a car turned into their drive. Yawning, Bran stumbled into his room to pull on some clothes whilst she wrapped a robe about her nightdress and hurried down to let her brother in.</p><p>“You’re hurt,” she said, some of her ire at his lateness dissipating. The black eye was fresh, as was his cut lip. He smelled of sweat and adrenaline and was dusting snow off his entirely inadequate outer layer.</p><p>“Yes. I had an unexpected delay. I don’t suppose you have a bag of frozen vegetables to hand?”</p><p>Leah could do better than that, diverting off the entranceway into the small downstairs bath to get the first aid kit.</p><p>“I’ll make some tea,” Bran announced, jogging down the stairs and headed to the kitchen. “Oliver. Welcome.”</p><p>Oliver smiled, then winced, pressing the back of his hand against his lip. “Bran. Thank you for allowing me into your territory etcetera etcetera.”</p><p>“You don’t have to say that to him,” she told him from inside the bathroom, rifling through the kit, looking for the Tylenol that she could <em>sworn </em>she had. “You’re not a werewolf. Go into the kitchen. Bran will get the cold compress from the freezer.”</p><p>He brother looked bemused. “Oh. I thought it was a general politeness thing.” Oliver wandered off after Bran.</p><p>She joined her brother and husband in the kitchen and presented the bottle of painkillers proudly. Her brother’s good eye lit up, the other being so swollen it was just a weeping sliver of blue. “Ah. I had thought it might be an unlikely addition to a werewolf home.”</p><p>“We do have humans in the pack,” Bran said mildly, pouring hot water over tea.</p><p>Leah decided not to point out that those humans were rarely given first aid in the Marrok’s house and instead gave her brother a glass of water. Bran had left the ice pack thawing on the counter so she wrapped it in a towel and handed it to him as well.</p><p>“Thanks.”</p><p>“Are you hungry? We have leftovers.”</p><p>“I’m good. Thank you.” He toasted her with the glass of water and swallowed his pills. “This is more than enough.”</p><p>Bran slid the cup of tea across the table. “I take it sorcerers don’t heal fast.”</p><p>“Not naturally.”</p><p>This of course left an opening for sorcerers being able to heal <em>unnaturally</em> and she could see her husband was dying to ask. But he held himself back and stood. “Perhaps you would be so kind as to put my wife out of her misery now?”</p><p>Oliver clearly didn’t want to. She could smell his nervousness, which was unusual from him. He gingerly applied the compress to his eye and sighed, shoulders drooping. “Please keep in mind you were my little sister and if I’d had my way, you would never have married that creature.”</p><p>She knew this. Oliver had made a brief visit just before the wedding, kicked up a big fuss and her father had expelled him from the house. She remembered crying, her last hope that someone would save her vanishing before her eyes. “Noted.”</p><p>“I knew what he planned for you. I honestly couldn’t think of anything worse, a series of little sorcerers in his image. So I sterilized your husband.”</p><p>Bran, who had also poured himself a cup of tea and was stirring honey into it, the little spoon chink-chink-chinking against the porcelain, paused his stirring. Carefully, he set it aside.</p><p>Leah stared at her brother. “You sterilized him.”</p><p>“Yes.” Oliver’s good eye scrutinized her. “I know you thought you were the problem. I’m sorry for the pain that caused you.”</p><p>“<em>Everyone</em> thought I was the problem.” Her husband. Her father. The intrusive, married women of her husband’s friends who prodded and pried and offered mystical ‘cures’ for her infertility. Even the damned servants had looked at Leah with pity. </p><p>“I know. I wanted to tell you. I intended to, after he died. I am sorry. I know you wanted children.”</p><p>Out of the corner of her eye, Leah noticed that Bran had slid his way closer to her. Perhaps he thought she was going to do something, react in some way. But she didn’t… didn’t feel anything.</p><p>Leah <em>tried</em> to make herself feel something. She poked at the old wound, apparently caused not by her own body betraying her but her brother, forcing his sorcery on her life without her knowledge. “You know he hurt me because I couldn’t give him children.”</p><p>The one blue eye closed briefly. “I did not know that until it was too late. I thought him too old for you, too spendthrift, and manipulative. I did not know he would abuse you. He was supposed to be a gentleman.”</p><p>Leah could have rolled her eyes at this. Their father was <em>supposed </em>to be a gentleman and whilst he might never have physically raised a hand to her, he had hurt her plenty.</p><p>Of course, Oliver had barely been around. By the time she was a teenager, he had come into his full power and was already feuding with their father. He had no authority over her – especially not once she was married and formally removed into her husband’s house. He’d come for dinner once or twice.</p><p>Her husband had made it difficult, talking to Oliver as if he was a child, siding with her father. The evening always ended with raised voices and, later, Leah being backhanded across her bedroom. It had been easier when he wasn’t around, no matter that she had been comforted by his kind eyes and his gentleness towards her.</p><p>She swallowed. She didn’t want to see him any more. “Well. The guest room is ready for you. Bran, could you show Oliver the way?”</p><p>Bran nodded and smiled his most neutral smile. “This way,” he said, gesturing.</p><p>*</p><p>Bran climbed into his bed with the quietest of rustles. She had heard him fetch Oliver some clothes, listened to them talk intermittently to each other – nothing particularly interesting, both wisely choosing not to speak of Leah or the loss of her childbearing years. She’d heard Bran pad into her room to look for her first before finding her in his bed.</p><p>“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked, as she had expected him to.</p><p>She shook her head. “No.”</p><p>The mattress dipped as he turned on his side, facing her back. “Do you want me to comfort you?”</p><p>“<em>No</em>,” Leah replied, vehemently, not certain what manner of comforting he was thinking of but not wanting anything physical at all.</p><p>Then, because it was polite, because he had kissed her earlier with no conditions, almost as if he liked her or cared, hurried to say, “But thank you.”</p><p>Nevertheless, she felt the knuckles of his hand brush the back of her neck. Perhaps he did care. In his own way.</p><p>Leah didn’t really expect to sleep. She listened as Bran’s breathing changed, as he relaxed. The house settled around them. It had started snowing heavily, which always added a lovely softness to the night, like a blanket had enveloped the house. The forecast had suggested they would have perhaps two feet of snow by morning. She hoped Oliver didn’t have plans for the following day – she suspected the old Ford he’d turned up in didn’t even have snow tires, which was insanity this time of year in Montana.</p><p>She wondered when he got got into her house. How. What would have happened if she had known what her brother had done. Would she have removed the symbols from her house? Probably. Definitely. Had she become a mother, where would she be now?</p><p>Around two in the morning, Bran rolled onto his front and sighed. “We could watch TV,” he said, his mouth muffled in the pillow. “That new Finnish series maybe.”</p><p>She half turned to look at him, then simply rolled over herself when she found his bright eyes were wide open. “I thought you were asleep.”</p><p>He rubbed a hand over his face and stretched. “No, I could feel your brain ticking.”</p><p>She snorted. “You cannot.”</p><p>“I can <em>imagine</em> your brain ticking,” he amended, his voice a smile. Bran flung a heavy arm around her waist and squeezed. “TV?”</p><p>Why not, she thought.</p><p>Bran made them cocoa whilst she queued up the series to the most recent unwatched episode and took two blankets out of the blanket box. She curled up in her favorite chair whilst Bran took his preferred end of the couch, legs stretched out. He had added a mountain of whipped cream to his cocoa and was eating it with a spoon, his bare toes wriggling with delight.</p><p>She tried not to smile; he wasn’t adorable. There were rumors that Bran could even kill with his mind.</p><p>The TV show was a good idea. She lost herself in subtitles and understated expressions, beautiful scenery and knitted sweaters, and a complex murder mystery with so many twists she had to keep pausing to check on her understanding with Bran. Gratifyingly, sometimes his answers were a perplexed ‘I have no idea, either, go back a few minutes’.</p><p>Just before 4am, Bran yawned hugely and presented her with a rounded-eyed, hang-dog look which she took to mean he was tired and wanted to go to bed. She wasn’t immune to such a look and agreed that perhaps her emotional crisis could do with some sleep.</p><p>This time, as soon as they were back in bed, she curled herself around him, because he was being kind and she knew he would tolerate it. He aptly demonstrated this by stroking her hair. “Mostly,” she said, yawning midway through a decision that she had been muddling her way towards, “I feel sorry for her.”</p><p>“Her?”</p><p>An unfortunate slip of the tongue but apt. “Me. Before.”</p><p>“Ah. Yes.”</p><p>Leah felt her eyelids grow heavy, Bran’s rhythmic stroking soothing the lingering tension in her scalp. “She just wanted a baby,” she whispered. “Even if it had to be his.”</p><p>“Sleep now, Leah.”</p><p>                                                                           *</p><p>Bran returned to his usual form the next day, retreating to his office with a visibly curious Charles and Asil who stared at Oliver as they passed.</p><p>As the snowfall hadn’t been as significant as the forecast had indicated, Leah found Oliver some boots in his size, some thick socks and some better outerwear and took him on a tour of their immediate territory, trying to be mindful of his physical limitations.</p><p>Still, the exercise had her brother bent double, wheezing, breath misting in the air. “Can we take a break?” he pleaded as they crested what Leah considered to be one of the smaller peaks.</p><p>She fed him cocoa from the thermos and squares of chocolate brownies she’d made the day before, waiting for him to arrive.</p><p>They sat on a fallen tree and stared at the view, quietly. With the light covering of snow, it was particularly beautiful, this land she had called home for so long. Almost too much to take in at once. </p><p>“I’m sorry,” her brother said again.</p><p>Leah shrugged. “It’s fine. It’s done. I…” She scrunched her nose up. “I understand why you did it.”</p><p>“It was selfish. I didn’t think of you. I just thought of what would happen if his line continued.” Oliver shook his head, brushed brownie crumbs off his waterproof pants. “I thought you were young. That he was significantly older than you and wouldn’t be much longer in the world.”</p><p>“You were right there.”</p><p>“Father would have married you off again, if only to be rid of you. But you were more wily by then.” Oliver managed a small, dry smile, the still healing cut on his lip crusted over and swollen. The socket surrounding his eye was looking worse, the way healing black eyes always did. A motley collection of colors, just a little of his eye visible. “You could have handled another old man.”</p><p>Leah’s lip curled with revulsion but she accepted the compliment, for that was what it was supposed to be, “Thank you.”</p><p>Oliver finished his cup of cocoa and looked into the plastic vessel thoughtfully. “Though I suppose your Marrok is much older.”</p><p>She snorted – Bran had lived her lifetime several times over – and screwed the lid back on the thermos. “Just a bit, yes.” She made to stand but Oliver clasped her elbow.</p><p>“I really am sorry, Leah.”</p><p>“I know. And I forgive you.”</p><p>He looked doubtful but released her.</p><p>They walked for another mile, once again lost in their own thoughts. Leah’s flitted as they often did from things she needed to do when they got home, to thoughts of the past, her future. The snow crunching under her boots. Her brother. Her father. Kara. Bran.</p><p>She paused to show him one of her focuses, though of course it wasn’t visible. “Unless you can see it?” she asked.</p><p>To her surprise, Oliver nodded. “I can. It probably glows at night. When did you last top it up?”</p><p>“A couple of weeks ago.”</p><p>He made a noise of surprise, peering at the patch in the clearing as if he could truly see something. “It’s pretty bright. Go on. Light it up,” he suggested. “Let me see.”</p><p>Leah had never purposefully ‘lit up’ one of her focusses in front of someone else. She cleared a little of the snow with her boot and then started to unlace.</p><p>A dimple appeared in his cheek. She had the same one on the opposite cheek. “You won’t get frostbite?”</p><p>“Would take more than this,” Leah murmured, slipping out of her socks and standing on the freezing ground. She wiggled her toes and then stepped a little to the left, where the ground felt warmer. The connection snapped into place, she a plug, it a socket. Or perhaps it was the other way around.</p><p>“Wowza,” her brother whispered.</p><p>She looked at him. “What can you see?”</p><p>Oliver smiled, then winced as the cold had dried out his lip. She smelled the fresh blood as his cut split open once more. He pulled a chapstick from his pocket and started to apply it gingerly. “You’re glowing like a beacon. That’s a lot of energy.” He exhaled, a cloud of mist. “Maybe we should try you with a few basic—”</p><p>“No. Not again.”</p><p>They had tried, before. After. Again and again, in the parking lot of the mall. She had drawn simple symbols; the kind Oliver had been taught when he had only just begun to walk. She painted with her own blood in case the connection needed to be more personal. She had meditated. Nothing had worked except for the ability to drain ‘it’ away. She was a dud. She knew that. Their father – damn him – had been right. </p><p>Her brother frowned. “Much of what we do is mental. It’s will. Intention. It’s confidence. When we first tried, you and I, you were afraid. And upset,” he added, slowly.</p><p>“You have to admit my first experience with sorcery was not a pleasant one,” she spat, thinking of their father’s basement with its carvings in the floor and the small wooden chair she had sat on whilst he conducted his experiments. She could almsot <em>smell</em> the damp, mingling with her own fear.</p><p>“Not that. I know that. I meant— you were unhappy.”</p><p>Leah rolled her eyes and pulled her handkerchief from her pocket, balancing on one foot and then the other so she could dry her feet and put her socks back on.</p><p>“Well, I’m hardly going to be much better now, am I? Someone knows who I am and my husband is battling witches around the country.” At least now she was reasonably certain the only woman in Bran’s life was her. She knew what signs to look for now. She had experience.</p><p>Oliver didn’t push it, just mutely followed her back down the snowy track. “I’ve a mind to make you a weapon.”</p><p>“Oh?”</p><p>“Something you can store energy in. That will convert it. A sorcerer’s Taser, if you will.”</p><p>This was amusing. “I have guns.”</p><p>“They run out of bullets. This wouldn’t. Well, until you ran out of energy which from what I just saw might take a very long time.”</p><p>It sounded ineffective to Leah, who liked to draw blood. Guns. Knives. These were her weapons of choice. Teeth and claws. She paused, a thought occurring to her. “If you could see the focusses, does that mean other sorcerers can?”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>“At night?”</p><p>“Yes. Why?”</p><p>“We had a problem with drones a few months back. I’m just wondering… where that footage might have got to.”</p><p>“I’m not sure how well it would work via video footage. But it is something to consider.”</p><p>Leah was frustrated. It felt as if they were going nowhere. Henry Patterson was involved, she felt they had proven that, but how? Why?</p><p>Oliver was obviously thinking along the same lines. “I was thinking about the portrait. What if the working had been done when it was originally framed?”</p><p>“You don’t think that it would have been taken apart when it was sold? That no one would have touched it since and triggered the same working?”</p><p>“No, from what I could see that frame hadn’t been touched for a very long time.”</p><p>Leah’s current theory had been that whomever had stolen it in the 80s had applied the working when they sent it to her. A malicious prank at the very least. “And what would be the purpose of that?”</p><p>“It would have killed your husband.”</p><p>She paused at the top of an incline, waiting for Oliver to catch up with her. He was pink-cheeked. Like her, the flush brought out the blue of his eyes. Before Bran, she had often been told that the flush of being angry suited her. “As delightful as that sounds, it didn’t work.”</p><p>“Where was the painting hung?”</p><p>“In his study.”</p><p>“Did he spend a great deal of time in there?”</p><p>Leah nodded. “When he was at home, it was where he read and drank. He sometimes took meals in there.” If she was lucky, entire days could go past and she wouldn’t see him. And if she kept her eyes firmly closed at night.</p><p>“So, what little I was able to glean from it was that it was malicious. Sorcery needs to be renewed otherwise it can go a bit wonky. Your step-son’s construction friend can certainly testify to that. It’s possible when it was fresh it was more than malicious.”</p><p>“Like—” She thought about it. “Like it was poisoning him?”</p><p>“How did he die? Heart, was it?” She nodded. “Prior to that, he seemed to be in relatively fine form given his age. He wasn’t overweight. He didn’t have that florid color of an over-drinker, though certainly he was a sociable man. He still boxed, didn’t he? Rode horses? It wasn’t like he was an inactive man.”</p><p>She saw what he was getting at and she did vaguely recall the surprise she’d felt when the coroner had declared it was his heart that had given out. But he’d been seventy by then. It wasn’t beyond the realms of belief. “You think the heart attack was brought on by exposure to the painting.”</p><p>“It’s a possibility. I— it wouldn’t surprise me that Father would have put a time limit on the relationship.”</p><p>Leah’s eyes widened. “For what possible purpose?”</p><p>Oliver rose his eyebrows. “To remove the impediment of the father of your children.”</p><p>“Oh my God.”</p><p>Stunned, she started walking again, the theory unfolding in her mind, spurring her feet on. The more she thought about it, the more likely it seemed. It was <em>exactly</em> the sort of thing her father would have done.</p><p>“Oh my God,” she repeated.</p><p>*</p><p>She told Bran when he was in between meetings, just marched into his office and closed the door and sat in the chair across from his desk. Normally she would have knocked, perhaps asked if he could spare a moment for her. She didn’t this time. Just blurted it out.</p><p>Her husband thought about it. Placidly. Then rested his head on his propped up hand. “You know, I always assumed you didn’t speak of your parents because it was painful.”</p><p>This was not the response she had been expecting. She’d been hoping for sympathetic outrage. His statement rather took the wind out of her blown-out sails. “Well, that’s true.”</p><p>Older werewolves, as a rule, didn’t tend to hark on about family members whom they might have loved but had definitely lost. She would never forget asking Tag about his parents once and the look of vague confusion that crossed his face, as if he had forgotten someone had labored over bringing him into the world.</p><p>“Yes, but it’s not the painful I was imagining,” her husband mused, sitting back in his chair, the leather creaking. “We never did finish the conversation about your mother.”</p><p>“I didn’t know her. I actually,” Leah huffed out a bitter breath, “know nothing about her. Not even her name.”</p><p>Bran propped his elbow on the armrest and rested his head on his hand. He was moving his spinning office chair from side to side slightly. “Presumably your brother knows?”</p><p>“He has some theories.” Leah imagined there <em>might</em> have been a time when her younger self had asked about her mother but she couldn’t remember it. It had been very much on the list of taboo subjects she didn’t speak of, lest it lead to a cascade of her own inadequacies. “But only after the fact. My father travelled back to find someone suitable without him.”</p><p>The chair stopped moving. “Back, as in time?”</p><p>She nodded. She supposed this was the sort of detail Bran would be interested in. “I don’t remember, of course. But I was technically born in Britain.”</p><p>Every muscle in Bran’s body suddenly stood to attention. “<em>When?</em>”</p><p>“1604.” This Leah knew. It had been in her father’s book, in their family tree. Her father. Her brother. Her. Everyone else had been scratched out. “She came from a sorcerer family. One with a more recent bloodline, apparently. It was all he cared about. And when I was a few weeks old, he brought me to his present.”</p><p>Her husband narrowed his hazel eyes. “To the year you told me you were born.”</p><p>“Well… yes.”</p><p>“You lied to me.”</p><p>Leah pulled a face. She had never considered it a lie – for the most part she had ignored the story of her origins, to the point of almost entirely forgetting it - but he was visibly annoyed so clearly he did. “Really? <em>This</em> is the issue you are going to hang your hat on?”</p><p>Bran made an impatient gesture and shook his head. “No, I suppose not.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “Fine. So your controlling father worked his <em>sorcery</em> on the portrait to rid himself of an inconvenient son-in-law. I suppose this logic works as well as any other. It still leaves a question as to who sent it here. Charles is of the view that we should interrogate the Fox.”</p><p>Interrogations in their pack were now formally carried out by Asil, in his capacity as their Third. “Sounds logical.”</p><p>“Has your brother had any luck tracking your father down?”</p><p>She shook her head. “He says all the usual methods aren’t working.”</p><p>“Maybe you and I should make a visit to these properties he’d bought here. Perhaps there’s something your brother might have missed.” Bran tapped his nose, as if to indicate he was talking of their werewolf senses. “And perhaps it will draw your father out into the open.”</p><p>The phone on his desk started to ring and Leah saw this as her cue to leave. But Bran held up a hand and answered without looking away from her. “I’ll call you back, Albert,” he murmured, then hung up. To Leah he said, “Come here.”</p><p>‘Here’ was in front of him and she obediently presented herself to him. Bran rose and clasped her face, pushed their faces so close together she could see the gold flecks in his eyes. “Is there anything else, my wife, that you haven’t yet told me? Other jaunts into the past? A twin sister? Perhaps some other magical talents? Now is the time to mention it.”</p><p>She smiled, feeling the apples of her cheeks press against his palms. She liked the way he said ‘my wife’, always had done. “Feeling magnanimous are you?”</p><p>“Very.” He kissed her and it was friendly but firm. She was being mildly scolded.</p><p>She put her finger through a loop on his jeans and looked at him through her eyelashes. “Then… I suppose I must confess that the glitter was me.”</p><p>Bran barked a laugh, a proper one, where his head tilted back in delighted surprise. “Oh, <em>that</em> I suspected.”</p><p>Leah’s mouth dropped open. “You did?”</p><p>He was grinning. “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”</p><p>That sounded familiar – possibly a quote from one of his books. She made a face because he always made her feel stupid. “Basically by process of elimination you decided it was me?”</p><p>Bran squeezed her. “I did. It was very clever of you. You must tell me how you did it.” He bumped her nose with his. “Is that it? Perhaps you stole candy as a child?”</p><p>“No candy. And no other confessions.” She sighed, tilting her head so she could rub her cheek against his, wondering if this affectionate Bran went hand in hand with the sympathetic man who had stayed up all night with her watching murder mysteries. “I almost wish there were but you really do know everything.”</p><p>“Recent events would say otherwise.” Something in Bran’s tone had changed. He wove a hand in her hair, tugging her back to look at him. Yes. He was serious now. “You are my mate and I give you more leeway than I would do others. I do not appreciate being blindsided by you.”</p><p>She nodded, her hair taut in his fingers. “I know. It won’t happen again.” She gave him a small smile, which he did not return, just held her eyes until she dipped them submissively.</p><p>The phone on his desk rang again and Bran sighed, releasing her hair. “All right. I do have to take this now.” He patted her butt and let her go.</p><p>*</p><p>With Leah’s consent, Bran had invited his son and his wife over for dinner that evening so they could meet Leah’s brother. It was a peculiar situation, one everyone but Bran seemed to feel awkward about.</p><p>Anna, as ever, made the best of it, turning her full Omega charm on Oliver and filling in any of those awkward silences. She was tactful too, avoiding the obvious question of why they had never met him or heard of him before, just as they were all avoiding the topic of sorcery. Leah could see Oliver found her charming. Everyone did. Anna made an excellent first impression.</p><p>“Are you married, Oliver?” Anna asked at one point. A perfectly normal question to ask a person.</p><p>Leah winced into her wine glass.</p><p>But Oliver’s perma-smile didn’t waver. “No. Unfortunately not. I understand you are newly married?”</p><p>“Well. Not <em>new </em>new,” Anna said, sharing a fond look with Charles.</p><p>Leah had always appreciated that Anna, who she supposed was equally ga-ga over her mate as he was over her, had never worn that simpering lovelorn look that so many newlyweds did.</p><p>Not so Charles, however, who in the early days had failed to mask just how much joy Anna had brought him. As if he could not imagine his luck. Another nail in Leah’s heart that she had studiously tried not to think about.</p><p>Leah watched Oliver deflect the question of his romantic situation in much the same way he had always deflected her own questions on the subject. He had told her once that he was celibate but he’d said so whilst smelling of a woman so she had taken that statement with a pinch of salt.</p><p>Anna persevered with a teasing smile. “Do you date? Ever?”</p><p>“I don’t really have time.” Oliver passed the bowl of peas down the table to Leah. “Do your family know you’re a werewolf, Anna?”</p><p>Anna blinked at this change of subject. “I think my brother suspects but no. We aren’t really allowed,” Anna’s eyes dipped to Bran, eating placidly at the head of the table, “to share that information with anyone.”</p><p>“Not even a parent?”</p><p>“Particularly not a parent,” Leah confirmed, slicing into the pork belly. This was one of Bran’s recipes. He always managed to get the crackling just right. “Parents don’t take well to finding out their darlings become a monster once a month.”</p><p>“Is that what you think it is? A monster?” Oliver asked.</p><p>She shook her head. “I don’t actually. Some do.” </p><p>At the end of the table, Bran – one of those who thought of the beast inside as a monster – reached for his wine. “What did you think, when you found out Leah had been Changed?”</p><p>“Mostly relief that she would be out of our father’s purview.”</p><p>“Not that he didn’t try to wrestle me away from Claus,” Leah pointed out. Her father had tried everything. He’d hired men to kidnap her. He’d tried to bribe her Alpha. He’d even – and this was laughable – tried to appeal to Leah’s sense of familial obligation. After that debacle he had finally given up.</p><p>Charles helped Anna to additional potatoes. “Did you know werewolves existed before?”</p><p>“Yes. Though there weren’t many in America at the time. The fae outnumbered you. As well as some native gods and creatures, most of which, or whom, are in hiding now or nearly extinct. Walkers and the such,” Oliver murmured, looking into his wineglass.</p><p>Leah did not want to dwell on Walkers. She fixed her eyes on the dark window and sought for something to say. “Anna plays the cello,” she said, aware it sounded a little desperate.</p><p>“Do you?” Oliver all but gasped. “I <em>love</em> the cello.”</p><p>As one, the Cornicks converged on a topic they could all agree on – music. Names were passed across the table and debated. Mstislav Rostropovich. Adrien-François Servais. Jacqueline du Pré. Anna’s love for Alisa Weilerstein. Even Leah chipped in with Yo-Yo Ma, which got her an almost-warm look from Bran.</p><p>Leah enjoyed music. She wasn’t so deeply obsessed with it, though, which she put down to having no natural talent. She had weathered her piano forte lessons as a young woman and after she had married, closed the lid firmly on any intention to continue torturing herself and those who were forced to listen.</p><p>“Do you play any instrument?” Charles asked Oliver.</p><p>“I wish but these are not musical fingers. I can but appreciate good music – the cello being a particular favorite,” he added with a little wink towards Anna. Leah thought Oliver was doing a reasonably good job at charming their Omega. “And I always loved the theatre, of course. A safe precursor to the modern day movie theatre. Well, once it was safe. These days they’ve moved on from ropes and pullies to more complicated lighting and set design and <em>computers</em> and now that’s not safe from me.”</p><p>Oliver pouted, in much the same way Leah would. She patted his hand sarcastically. “There, there.”</p><p>He cast her what she would consider to be a very <em>brotherly</em> look, having witnessed such an expression cross Sam’s and Charles’s faces over the years. “You’re a beacon of comfort.”</p><p>She stuck her tongue out at him – again, it seemed apt – and moved to start clearing plates. She slapped her brother’s hands when he attempted the polite gesture that would suggest he would help. “No. You’re a guest.”</p><p>“Ow,” Oliver whispered, clutching his hand over-dramatically to himself.</p><p>Bran helped her clear and then hovered over her shoulder as she pulled the Crème Brûlée from the fridge. This was his favorite of all the desserts she made from scratch and consequentially it was her favorite – purely because she enjoyed the way he wriggled with happiness when he hit his spoon through the sugar.</p><p>She dusted a little powdered sugar over the top and then added a raspberry to each and then presented them to Bran to take through. He was smiling in such a way that she felt obliged to ask. “What is it? Something funny?”</p><p>“No, just your little flourishes,” he said, backing out of the kitchen with the little tray balanced on one hand.</p><p>“It’s what they look like in the picture.”</p><p>“I know. It’s charming, that’s all.”</p><p>‘Charming’. Not a word he had used to describe her before. But she’d take it.</p><p>*</p><p>In the morning, Oliver excused himself ‘for a few hours’, grabbing a banana, borrowing an appropriate overcoat, and walking off into the woods with his ancient cell phone in hand.</p><p>Bran watched him go from the window in their kitchen, frowning as he sipped his tea.</p><p>“What does your brother <em>do</em>?”</p><p>Leah chewed her crust of bread. “I don’t know in detail but he says he unpicks what my father sews.”</p><p>“What does that mean?”</p><p>“It means. Well.” She pulled a rueful face. “I think my father disturbs history for his own means. Oliver patches things up as best as he can, tries to prevent any ripples. It seems to be a full time job.”</p><p>Bran blinked. “That is… concerning.”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>Not surprisingly, this was a matter that clearly occupied her husband’s thoughts throughout the day. He kept popping in to see her with more questions. “What does he mean by <em>ripples</em>?”</p><p>“Things that… change the present, I think. I think he <em>feels</em> things differently than most people do. Wrongnesses.”</p><p>“Like Doctor Who.”</p><p>She lifted her eyebrows. “I’ll have to take your word for that.”</p><p>Leah had never watched Doctor Who. She didn’t really enjoy science fiction, her life being fantastical enough as it was, thank you very much. And it was one of those shows that he had enjoyed watching with members of the pack, Mercedes in particular, and so she had deliberately kept herself apart from it.</p><p>She’d read an article once that said you could always see when two people were in love because they looked to each other first to share in a moment. Watching her husband exchange happy looks with another woman, albeit a teenage one, had been too much for her.</p><p>Later, when she had decided she could start putting away some of their more extreme winter gear and this would be her afternoon chore, Bran appeared once more. He had a handful of nuts, scrounged from the pantry. Leah had a stock with the kind of high protein snacks that Bran in particular preferred. Caramelized pecans were his particular favorite.</p><p>“What happens when he travels back into the past?” her husband asked.</p><p>“I don’t know. He won’t tell me.”</p><p>He grunted. “And you accept that?”</p><p>Leah put down the hose of the vacuum cleaner and quickly screwed in the plug on the vacuum storage bag before the air returned. “You learn to accept things once you’ve heard ‘no’ often enough.” Unlike Bran, she was no control freak. “You don’t tell me plenty,” she reminded him, not without bitterness.</p><p>“That’s different,” Bran muttered.</p><p>“Is it?” She pushed aside the full bag of winter wear and started to fill another, rolling clothes up neatly, knowing it was almost entirely futile and that everything would come out needing to be ironed or the creases steamed. “You don’t tell me because I don’t need to know. Or perhaps because you think I’m too stupid to understand.” She shrugged. “Same old same old.”</p><p>Impassively, Bran tossed a few pecans into his mouth and crunched. “The first is correct. The second is not.” He bent down to scoop up an oversized zipped sweater lined with fleece in a pale mint color. “I’d wondered where this had got to. Your closet I presume?”</p><p>She glanced at it, affecting surprise. “Oh, is that yours?”</p><p>He sniffed it. “Apparently it’s yours now.”</p><p>Leah grinned at him. “It suits me better.”</p><p>“Cheeky.” But he dropped it back down, accepting the inevitable thievery of his clothes.</p><p>She tossed the sweater onto the chair in the corner of her bedroom. Now that he had drawn her attention to it, she recalled it was good for spring, when she wanted to go out without a coat. “You tell Anna more about what’s going on in other packs, and outside of America, than you tell me.”</p><p>“I don’t think that’s true.” He at least had the decency to appear to be thinking about it. “But sometimes she’s involved through Charles.”</p><p>“I’m involved through <em>you</em>.”</p><p>“Do you <em>want</em> to know what’s going on?”</p><p>“Of course I do.”</p><p>He shrugged and ate more nuts. “Fine.”</p><p>“Fine? That’s it? You mean you weren’t purposefully <em>not</em> talking to me?”</p><p>Bran pressed his lips together which was obviously a ‘yes’ even if it hadn’t been as purposeful as she had imagined.</p><p>She shook her head and zipped up the bag, applied the hose of the vacuum cleaner to the appropriate hole. She watched with satisfaction as the mountain of winter gear shrunk to a fifth of its size. It would all go up into the loft to be stored until later in the year instead of cluttering up closets all over the house.</p><p>She so liked an organized home.</p><p>“What does your father look like?”</p><p>Abruptly Leah sat back on her heels, eyes widening. “Oh. I don’t know that.”</p><p>Bran was plainly perplexed by this response.</p><p>“Um. I’m— encouraged <em>not</em> to know.” This, perhaps, fell into the bucket of Things She Should Have Told Him. “Neither Oliver or I can remember him properly. I remember the odd thing – colors or textures. Sometimes I think I can almost see him in my mind’s eyes but it’s pretty fleeting. I wouldn’t be able to pick him out of a crowd.”</p><p>This was apparently too much for her husband, who made a low-pitched noise and abruptly left her bedroom. A moment or two later, she heard his office door downstairs close firmly. For all she knew, he’d gone inside to scream.</p><p>He was back twenty minutes later, face like thunder. He glared at her, hands on his hips. His hair was sticking up. “This is intolerable, Leah.”</p><p>“Yes, it must be very hard for you,” she said drily, pushing the collapsible ladder up with a shove into the loft. She watched it fold itself back up and then the trapdoor closed neatly behind it. Sometimes it got stuck. Today was not one of those days.</p><p>Bran swore and walked off again.</p><p>Leah sympathized. She could see why he would find this annoying, this thing that had – like many things – been done <em>to</em> her and she just accepted. At her husband’s core was control – of himself, of those around him. This situation, everything about it, was out of his control and it would be unbearable for him.</p><p>After washing her hands because the loft was always dusty, she braved his office. He was stabbing a poker at his fire and ignored her entrance. The room was too hot; he had been cooking himself because he found staring into a fire helpful to his thinking process.</p><p>She walked behind his desk and cracked open a window.</p><p>Bran exhaled, still stabbing the fire. “I am grateful our parents never met.”</p><p>“Indeed. A hideous prospect.”</p><p>She dropped down next to him, crossed her legs. Instead of watching the fire, she stared at his profile instead. Firelight had always suited him, brought out the gold in his hair, warmed his normally pale skin.</p><p>She could feel the bubble of <em>I love you</em> on her tongue again. It went against every instinct to hold it back because she had to, she just had to. She could not be that vulnerable with him.  </p><p>Bran put the poker down and massaged his forehead. “How does it work? This ‘encouraging’?”</p><p>“It was sort of trained into me. I was told not to remember.”</p><p>She shook her head and looked down at the floor. It was hard, explaining. Or perhaps simply embarrassing because each time she had cause to ‘explain’, she revealed exactly how much she didn’t know.</p><p>“I mean, there was more to it than that. Oliver says it’s a form of hypnosis.” </p><p>Her husband shook his head, perhaps finding her lack of knowledge trying himself. “Come here. Let me see if I can do something with it. A mind is a mind, after all, and you are one of mine to boot.”</p><p>Curious, Leah shuffled forward until they were sitting face to face, their knees touching. She rested her hands on his calves and he stared into her eyes. She felt the prickling pull of his particular power mixed with that of his call as her Alpha. It was uncomfortable and her wolf twitched unhappily. Bran shushed her, non-verbally. “Keep looking at me.”</p><p>So she looked and watched her husband’s eyes turn from hazel to gold. There was his wolf, looking right at her. She felt no fear. His wolf would never harm her. She was in the unique position of being the only one he would never harm, as he so recently demonstrated.</p><p>Bran shushed her again and she didn’t think she was making any noises. “This might feel peculiar.”</p><p>“Peculiar— oof!” She sucked in a breath as she <em>felt</em> Bran. In her mouth. She could taste him on her tongue, feel him in in her mind’s eye. In her pores. She blinked frantically. She could feel his <em>skin</em> like it was hers. Like some kind of fever dream, hot and achy, textures and <em>her wolf did not like this</em>. “Stop it, stop it, stop it.”</p><p>Bran’s hands – her hands? – held her/them and his golden eyes seemed to grow like the sun until she could see nothing but them, her eyelids turning inside out. She fell backwards or forwards – she just <em>fell</em>.</p><p>And then she was looking at the ceiling of Bran’s office. Which needed painting.</p><p>Her husband loomed over her. “Are you okay?”</p><p>“Um.” She licked her dry lips. “Peculiar was an understatement.”</p><p>“Yes, you took that rather differently than most do. Most just feel a tingle.” Bran frowned at her. “When I say ‘most’, I mean every wolf I have ever communed with.”</p><p>She sighed. “What a surprise.”</p><p>Bran helped her up and then they held hands for a little while, his thumbs unconsciously stroking the back of her hand. He gazed into the fire, seemingly lost in thought and she tried to un-discombobulate herself, moving her tongue around her mouth to ascertain that, yes, that was her tongue, not his, and she tasted the pecorino she’d used in the soup she’d made for lunch. Her hair felt like her hair, her skin like hers own. Two arms, two legs. Fingers and toes. Warmth on her own face.</p><p>The silence, broken only by the crackle and hiss of his fire, was calming. And it was pleasant to sit with him with no expectation of action or conversation, just his hands on hers. So pleasant that she forgot entirely the purpose of his invasion into her mind – though it hadn’t felt like an invasion, it had felt like a <em>takeover – </em>and tried to summon the image of her father.</p><p>Jonathan Eldon’s face manifested in front of her. Instantly recognizable, as if she had never had trouble remembering it. As if she had only seen him yesterday.</p><p>“Oh, Bran, it worked.” Then, “<em>Oh</em>. I really wish it hadn’t.” Leah shook her head, frantically trying to be rid of it. Now that she could see him, she couldn’t <em>unsee</em> him and all that came with it. “Oh God, he looks just like Oliver.”</p><p>“Yes, I would have guessed you both took after him.” Bran released one of her hands and reached up to touch her hair with a small smile. “Strong genes.” He cupped the back of her head and pulled her towards him, pressing their foreheads together. “I’m sorry.”</p><p>Still trying to shake off the face of a father who had never loved her, Leah dismissed this apology. “It wasn’t too bad.”</p><p>“No. I’m sorry that I never asked.”</p><p>She swallowed. It was true - whilst she had never told, he had certainly never asked, never interrogated any of the commonplaces she had shared about herself. “I know why,” she whispered regretfully.</p><p>Bran was typically disinterested in anyone’s pre-werewolf life. That wasn’t unusual. Who they had been <em>before</em> they Changed was usually irrelevant. But Bran’s interest in Leah, his <em>dis</em>interest, ran deeper. It was deliberate. For he exerted no effort to know her more than he needed to. Perhaps why he had been so ready to believe she could betray him, all those months ago.  </p><p>Bran nodded – accepting this truth and her knowledge of it – and sat back, let her go. He rubbed his hands on his thighs and stood up. “This should make things easier, at least. Knowing what he looks like.”</p><p>Leah nodded. They were back to business. “Indeed. Thank you. Do you think you could do the same thing to my brother?”</p><p>He was doubtful. “Do you think he would let me try?”</p><p>“Probably not, but it would be worth asking.”</p><p>“Then ask.”</p><p>*</p><p>Oliver was not keen. “Even if I was apparently as happy as you are to let your husband rustle around in my head, I don’t believe it would work.”</p><p>Leah held the phone between her head and shoulder, pouring bags of nuts into the jars in the pantry. Apparently her husband had been <em>very</em> hungry and had decimated most of their supplies. He’d even eaten the banana chips, his very least favorite snack. “Bran wouldn’t hurt me.”</p><p>“Can’t say the same for me, though, can you,” her brother said cheerfully. She could do nothing but agree there. “Pity you were never much of an artist. You could draw him for us.”</p><p>“I don’t need to. You just need to look in the mirror. He has a narrower face, different mouth,” she touched her own lips which, if she looked in the mirror, were closer to her father’s than her brother’s, “but otherwise you could pass as brothers.”</p><p>“I… that feels familiar.”</p><p>“When will you be back?” His stepping out for a ‘few hours’ had become more than twenty-four hours. She hoped he’d had more than a banana since he’d left them.</p><p>“Tomorrow. Maybe the day after. Not sure yet.”</p><p>She nodded and tossed the last empty bag onto a shelf before clipping the jar lids closed. “We’re going to go visit the houses Father’s bought tomorrow. Bran and I.”</p><p>“Sounds good.” There was a crackle on the line and for a moment she could have sworn she could hear singing. Choral singing. “Your family is nice,” her brother murmured.</p><p>Leah had never really felt as if Bran’s family were ‘hers’ but she wasn’t going to argue the point – she knew it made her look pathetic. “I think they liked you.” Which simultaneously sat well with her and didn’t. They had warmed to Oliver in a way that they never had with Leah.</p><p>“Your husband—” A crackle, again the choral music, and then he was back, “— he was.”</p><p>“I missed that.”</p><p>“I was just saying that he is different than I thought he would be.”</p><p>Leah had heard similar all of her married life. Bran was never tall enough for people. Scary enough. He didn’t crackle with power like some dominant werewolves did. He wasn’t handsome enough – this she personally disagreed with but did so knowing beauty was in the eye of the beholder.</p><p>“The way you talk, I thought he would be more, I don’t know, withdrawn from you.”</p><p>Oh. “He usually is. I’m temporarily interesting to him at the moment.” And, she mused, Leah had to keep reminding herself of that fact. They were in each other’s company more at the moment for one reason and one reason only. There was a threat. To her. To them. Once that was over she knew he would revert to type, promises to talk to her more included.</p><p>A little paranoid, Leah pushed open the pantry door and peered out. She thought Bran was in his office but she wasn’t absolutely certain. Talking about a person on a phone was always a risky business around werewolves.</p><p>“Well. Obviously you know best.”</p><p>She did. She was well past the time in her life when she would draw hope from the observations of others – not knowing that Bran often put his best manners on in front of strangers. And Oliver was a stranger to him. “Where are you? Why can I hear singing?”</p><p>“You can hear that?”</p><p>“Occasionally.”</p><p>“That’s in—” Then the line abruptly cut out.</p><p>She stared at the screen and then jolted as it lit up with another call, from a different number. A 509 area code.</p><p>Of course, it could be anyone – the code covered nearly two thirds of Washington State and the Columbia Basin pack wasn’t the only pack in that area - but she knew it was Mercedes. It was always Mercedes.</p><p>The phone stopped ringing; Bran must have picked it up. Her finger hovered over the answer button, even though she knew if she answered, Bran would hear it. So would Mercedes. He would ask her to hang up in his calm, cool voice and she would have to. It would be humiliating.</p><p>Her hand trembled and, very carefully, she put the handset down and walked away.</p><p>*</p><p>The first house was a modern four bed set on the riverfront with views of the Missouri and surrounding wildlife. It was around four-thousand square feet and had about five acres – physically smaller than Leah’s home. </p><p>It was also clearly empty. They’d been able to drive right up to the property and, having ascertained there were no security cameras, scope out the place.</p><p>“Bee hives,” Bran said happily, marching over to inspect them. They were also unoccupied, the bees having long since moved on.</p><p>This was not the first time he had brought up bees, having been inspired by Sherlock Holmes sometime in the early 1900s. There had been a brief period during the construction of their current house when he had talked about having a hive built <em>into</em> their house so he could watch the bees do whatever it was that bees did through a glass pane.</p><p>The prospect of inviting insects indoors aside, her real issue was that, with Bran away so often, any hobbies he took up were usually left to her to maintain. “Tag has said he’ll keep bees for you,” she reminded him firmly.</p><p>“It’s not the same.”</p><p>They walked the property, blithely trespassing, and Bran decided there was nothing of any significance that he could note there. He stopped before getting back into the truck. “It’s a nice house,” he said, eyes sweeping up and down the property.</p><p>Leah agreed. She’d particularly liked the upper deck, imagined herself sitting and watching the sunrise in the morning with a cup of coffee. “The view is spectacular.”</p><p>It was a couple of hours to Butte so they stopped for lunch in Helena, a proper one. “No fast food,” her husband muttered, giving her some side-eye.</p><p>She said nothing to this, just sipped her Pepsi and ate her steak and baked potato. Bran had a burger the size of his head with all the trimmings which he demolished in his usual neat fashion and then ordered cheesecake, which he deigned to share with her. As with all their meals together, it was companionable. She only stopped herself from asking about the call from Mercedes twice. An improvement, she felt. Used to be that sort of thing would worry at her until she blurted it out at some inopportune moment.</p><p>Perhaps she was growing as a person.</p><p>The property just outside Butte was less easy to access. They scoped it out from the road with binoculars and agreed that as there was no clear visibility, it behooved them to be a little more circumspect.</p><p>They parked up and Leah changed into more suitable hiking footwear and they made their way down to the house, Bran reciting facts about its listing history. “It was a bargain. Originally listed for nearly two million in 2017. He snapped it up for eight-hundred thousand. A hundred acres.”</p><p>“What on earth does he want with a hundred acres,” she muttered.</p><p>“It’s got its own pond.”</p><p>“What does he want with a pond?” She glimpsed the red timbered property through the trees. “My father lived in cities all his life. He didn’t even like going out to the estate in the country in the summer. He’d stay in Boston and swelter.”</p><p>“No time travel to a cooler destination, then?”</p><p>“That would be frivolous. A waste of craft,” she added, off-hand.</p><p>She could picture him saying it now, scowling at her over the dining table as if she was an insignificant speck of dirt on his shoe. These memories were coming thick and fast now, no longer held back by her inability to recall the detail of his face. She was tempted to ask Bran if he could reverse what he’d done.</p><p>Bran took a deep breath and turned a full circle. “I could live here too.”</p><p>“I’m less keen on the style of this house,” she said, sniffing. “Bet it’s all exposed new wood inside. Oversized flint fireplaces.”</p><p>“Too rustic for you.”</p><p>“Rustic <em>gaudy</em>. I like rustic just fine.” Unlike most people of the Twenty-First century, she’d actually lived in a cabin and she could appreciate that original aesthetic rather than the ‘modernized’ version.  </p><p>Bran nodded his agreement and they wandered around the property. They even went to check out the pond which to Leah’s mind was more of a small lake. She watched the ripples on the surface that suggested there was a healthy community of underwater life. “Do you think it floods?” she asked.</p><p>“Property listing said it’s in Zone 4.”</p><p>They stood admiring the water for a little while. “Getting anything weird?”</p><p>Bran shook his head. “Nothing.”</p><p>They trudged back up to the truck and this time Leah took the wheel. They brainstormed theories as she set a course for home.</p><p>“Just good property investment,” she announced. Money made the world go round. And her father had seemed to have a lot of it.</p><p>“Tremendous lifestyle change,” he suggested, in such a way that made her smile.</p><p>“Horses.” Both properties had come with stables. “He’s taking up horse breeding.”</p><p>“Fishing.”</p><p>Leah laughed, a heaviness in her chest lifting. “<em>Bird watching</em>.”</p><p>Bran grinned. “Good one. Whittling.”</p><p>This made her properly laugh. “I don’t know why this is so funny. Be serious, Leah,” she scolded herself, out loud, wiping her watering eyes on her sleeve. “Oliver said that he bought both of these properties in the space of two months, middle of last year. Before that he hadn’t bought anything since the 1940s and that was in Spain and he thought it was because the site held some kind of mystical value. He sold it twenty years later anyway.”</p><p>“Where does he live now?”</p><p>“In the present, mostly in hotels. Oliver says owning property is difficult, which it would be if you didn’t have a Charles like we do.” Charles who had been moving their property investments, and more importantly the paperwork of their property investments, around since records really began.</p><p>“Amen,” Bran murmured.</p><p>Yes, they had a great deal to be thankful for. It was impossible to live off the grid these days without committing what was essentially fraud. Charles had a network who could produce social security numbers and all the authentic papers necessary for werewolves who had ‘passed’ the age when they could viably be well preserved. He was using that same network to interrogate what paperwork they had on Henry Patterson.</p><p>Off the tail of that thought, she wondered if Charles could help Oliver out. He lived a pretty transient lifestyle from all that she had heard. She wondered if he ever wanted to put down roots, have somewhere to call home himself.</p><p>And realized she was in the unique position of being able to ask him that. Because he would be back in her home that evening. Her own blood visiting her. Staying in their guest bedroom.</p><p>Weird.</p><p>*</p><p>Part of Charles’s and Anna’s ‘social history’ investigation had involved digging up everything they could about Henry Patterson. His family wealth – which was extensive and very diverse, as if the family succeeded at everything they did – and his family.</p><p>He had one living parent, his mother, who lived in New Hampshire, to whom Henry Patterson sent ten thousand dollars a month. For what, Leah couldn’t imagine. Perhaps she had a huge household with staff. There was no other evidence that she existed. Nothing on social media. No driver’s license. No passport.</p><p>“Which isn’t necessarily that peculiar given she’s probably in her eighties,” Bran said, leaning back in his chair and tossing an ancient Hacky Sack in the air and catching it repeatedly.</p><p>“I wonder if she’s as well preserved as her son.” Leah riffled through the papers Charles had left behind – a true cornucopia of information that surely had to be illegally accessed. Bank statements. Birth certificates. Copies of passports.</p><p>“Maybe he’s part fae,” Bran mused. “A drop or two can do wonders for lifespan.”</p><p>Leah had not been part of that afternoon’s review as she had been out training with the new Changes all day.</p><p>This was a responsibility that she had partially delegated to Sage but now, once again, carried out by herself. She tried to keep to a schedule – there was even a training plan somewhere, probably lost to the aggressive clear-out of Sage’s house – but she had let a couple of weeks slip by whilst they had been dealing with her family drama. Consequentially, she’d been hard on them and thus hard on herself and had been unable to drum up much irritation that Charles had debriefed Bran without her.</p><p>“What’s this? A family tree?”</p><p>Bran didn’t look up, just kept tossing his little sack in the air. “Anna’s attempt. There are quite a few missing pieces.”</p><p>It was handwritten in Anna’s neat cursive. Henry at the bottom, then his mother – Mirium – who had been married to Henry Senior. An imaginative naming convention. Henry Senior had a brother, married to Unknown, no issue. Henry Senior’s parents were Alfred Patterson and Unknown Seers(?) but above that Anna had found Alfred’s parents easily enough.</p><p>Leah tapped her finger over the name of Alfred’s mother. Helena. “Did Charles say where the Pattersons came from?”</p><p>“Massachusetts, broadly speaking.” Bran paused his playtime. “Why?”</p><p>It was probably a coincidence, Leah decided. There were only a handful of dates with plenty of question marks so it wasn’t like this was a reliable piece of evidence. Besides, Helena was a very common name.</p><p>But Henry Patterson did have red hair.</p><p>She sat back, a worm gnawing at her.</p><p>Bran gestured with his Hacky Sack. “Well? You have that look on your face.”</p><p>“It’s probably nothing.”</p><p>Her husband pulled a face and kicked his feet off of his desk. “Tell me anyway.”</p><p>Leah exhaled. This was mortifying. “He had a mistress. Before we were married. Whilst we were married. Her name was Helena.”</p><p>Bran kept his face impassive, which she was grateful for. She looked back down at the family tree once more. “He told me on more than one occasion that he knew he was able to have children. He was adamant that I was the problem. Alfred was born maybe two years before I was married.”</p><p>Bran held his hand out for the piece of paper and she let it go. “Do you remember her surname? I’m presuming she wasn’t married to this Thomas Patterson.”</p><p>“No. She went by Mrs. De Luca and told everyone she was a widow, which might have been true, of course. She was a popular hostess. He took me to one of her saloons once.”</p><p>This did raise Bran’s eyebrows. “What a charming man.”</p><p>Leah narrowed her eyes, trying to remember. “I think they were having a fight and he wanted to make a point. She was older than me and very beautiful.”</p><p>Bran scoffed and said in irritation, “<em>You’re</em> very beautiful.”</p><p>Leah could count on one hand the number of times Bran had complimented her so this was a little shocking. For them both, apparently - Bran was visibly stunned the words had left his mouth.</p><p>“Well,” she continued, deciding this was the best course of action even though she knew her cheeks had gone pink, “she was very exotic. She had this flame-red hair and big brown eyes. Really quite unusual looking and quite the woman of the world. I felt like wallpaper.”</p><p>She had cried, all the way home. Alone, of course, as he had gone to his club and not returned until late the next morning. “Anyway. I always wondered if he’d a few bastards tucked away somewhere so it wouldn’t surprise me if they had a child. If she re-married, her child could easily have taken his step-father’s name.”</p><p>“It would also mean Henry Patterson had sorcerer blood.”</p><p>Leah held her thumb and forefinger together. “Miniscule.”</p><p>“We don’t know that. Genetics are a strange thing. Or perhaps his family history was verbally handed down to him. You said your first husband was proud of his sorcerer blood. Perhaps he passed that on to his child.”</p><p>“If this is his child,” she reminded him.</p><p>Bran smiled and reached for his phone. “Let’s call Charles, shall we? And set him on the trail.”</p><p>*</p><p>Anna found her in the kitchen. “Oh god, I never do this,” she sighed. “I should do this shouldn’t I?”</p><p>Leah sat back from the oven, eyes streaming from the chemicals. She’d opened a window and held her breath but it still felt as if the back of her throat had been scoured. “Did you come to see me?” </p><p>“Yes. Can we—” Anna’s eyes started to water and she backed out of the kitchen, gesticulating.</p><p>Coughing, Leah snapped off the plastic gloves she’d worn. The oven cleaner could sit for a few more minutes before she needed to wipe it off. “Charles could do it,” Leah suggested. From what she remembered, Charles had always been very meticulous.</p><p>“No. He does most of the cooking so I clean.”</p><p>Seemed modern. By comparison, whilst Bran had taken on more of the cooking than he used to, things were still reasonably traditional in the domestic areas of their marriage. He kept his office meticulously clean, and his own bedroom, but the rest of the house was her domain. She had never felt particularly ruffled about this arrangement, though she was aware it was perhaps old fashioned.</p><p>Normally, Leah would have offered Anna something to drink but that would mean venturing back into the kitchen. They settled down in the living area.</p><p>“So, we found a painting of Henry Patterson’s great-great-grandmother,” Anna began, handing Leah her cell phone.</p><p>Leah glanced down and immediately handed the phone back. “Yes. That’s her.” Unmistakable. She would never forget those almond-shaped brown eyes. “That was quick. Well done.”</p><p>Anna beamed and then her smile dimmed. “I’m sorry. Your first husband sounds like a real piece of work.”</p><p>“Mmm.” Leah leaned back in her chair and twirled the end of her braid thoughtfully.</p><p>Wisely, Anna chose to move on. “We found the Church records for Alfred’s birth – he was Christened ‘De Luca’ but when he married he seemed to take his step-father’s name. There wasn’t really a formal process for adopting, I suppose.”</p><p>She shook her head. “Any evidence that there was a Mr. De Luca ever?”  </p><p>Anna shook her head. “No. Presumably they could have been married elsewhere?”</p><p>“Yes. But I don’t think he really existed. There was… a taint to her. People really only suffered her because she was beautiful and very wealthy.” Leah wrinkled her nose, trying to recall the details.</p><p>Affairs between married men and women in society wasn’t uncommon but Helena De Luca had very definitely been his mistress. Even if Leah hadn’t suffered through snide comments made to her as if in sympathy, she had known her husband paid for her house. Expensive jewelry. Clothes.</p><p>She sighed.  </p><p>God, she was tired of this. It was exhausting re-feeling the emotions of a girl she was no longer, a girl who’d had no power to right the wrongs of her marriage.</p><p>“I think we should move up the interrogation,” Leah decided. “I want to get to the bottom of Henry Patterson. Just… get this over with.” Perhaps they could be lucky. That the coming together of Patterson, the portrait, her father’s movements in Montana were all just individual coincidences.</p><p>“I can understand that,” Anna said, brown eyes softening in sympathy. She was genuine in her feelings, which was the only reason it was bearable.</p><p>Leah jerked her head to the kitchen. “I need to get back to that. I’m always concerned the chemicals are rotting through the metal.”</p><p>Anna rose. “Let me know if there’s anything else I can do.”</p><p>“I will.”</p><p>Once Leah had finished scrubbing the oven out – and her eyes had recovered – she moved on to other difficult-to-clean areas of her kitchen. The tops of the kitchen cupboards required standing on the counters, the hose of the vacuum cleaner in one hand, a Swiffer in the other. It was both dusty and sticky work and she was in a foul mood, so foul that Bran walked in at one point, took one look at her and left without saying a word.</p><p>“Once again, I put in my request to hire a firm to deep clean to your standards once a month,” Bran told her as they prepared for bed that night. </p><p>“I can do it.”</p><p>“I know you can do it.” He stood in the doorway that connected their rooms in just his pajama pants. “But you hate it.”</p><p>“I don’t hate it. I hate <em>some </em>of it. You hate parts of your job.”</p><p>“I can’t outsource my job.”</p><p>He could. But he didn’t. Leah pulled a face at her reflection in her dressing table mirror and finished braiding her hair. It was not an argument she wished to have with him. “Do you really want humans scuttling about our home?”</p><p>He snickered and disappeared from view. She heard the whir of his electric toothbrush. “You make it sound like they’re vermin.”</p><p>Bran returned to stand in the doorway, toothbrush moving in his mouth. He watched her change into her night dress in a predatory fashion and then went to rinse his mouth. “Our pack is the biggest it’s ever been and they show no inclination of splitting their time between our house and Charles’s.”</p><p>“That’s because Charles doesn’t encourage it.” She sat expectantly in the middle of her bed, waiting for him.</p><p>“I’m not forcing him to socialize, if that’s what you’re getting at. Anna is working on that. But they are not set up to share their house like we are. And it’s becoming too much for you.”</p><p>Bran turned off the light in his bathroom and padded into her room. He crawled up from the base of her bed towards her and nudged her onto her back, flicking pillows out of the way as he did so, grumbling about the excess bedding.</p><p>They kissed, lazily, for long minutes, legs intertwined, and then Bran politely requested the removal of her nightdress, smoothing his hand up her hip.</p><p>“Certainly,” she replied, equally politely, hooking her fingers into the drawstring of his pants. “If I might suggest you take off this?”</p><p>His mouth twitched. “I can do that.”</p><p>Naked, they resumed enthusiastically kissing, this time their hands roaming heated, bare skin, paying attention to areas that brought each other pleasure.</p><p>For Bran, it was his scalp which made him all-but-purr, and then her nails digging into his lower back which made his hips twitch. For Leah it was the left side of her neck, which he kissed and licked and bit. It was distractingly arousing. She writhed beneath him in frustrated pleasure.</p><p>Bran ran his thumb between the crease of her legs, dipping into her wetness. He licked her bottom lip. “May I?”</p><p>She huffed out a laugh. “Since you asked so nicely…”</p><p>He eased inside of her, an almost-goofy smile on his face which turned into an ‘o’ of pure pleasure, mouth parting as he exhaled and she inhaled sharply. They moved together, picking up a natural, smooth rhythm, Leah’s hips lifting to meet him.</p><p>She kissed his neck, his shoulder, the patch of freckles with which she was intimately familiar. The rush of love was not unfamiliar to her but it seemed closer to the surface than usual. She didn’t want to meet his eyes.</p><p>Bran’s hips started to snap at a faster pace and she tried to sneak her hand between their bodies to touch herself but he laughed and caught her wrist, pulling her hand above her head. He sat back on his knees abruptly, chest heaving but keeping them still joined. “Not yet,” he told her sternly, adjusting her hips and then spreading her open wide, thumbs stroking the tops of her thighs.</p><p>He leaned forward, putting his weight on his hands on her hips, holding her firmly in place, and thrust a couple of times, almost experimentally, and Leah’s eyes rolled backwards at the jolt of pleasure. “Oh God,” she whispered, knowing what was coming. She covered her mouth in anticipation.</p><p>Bran’s grin was unholy as he thrust once again and she felt the punch of air on her palm as she cried out. “I like this noise.” He did it again, again, and again and she couldn’t stop herself. It was almost excruciating – as if he was hitting something that her brain couldn’t translate. Her husband pulled her hand away from her mouth, leaning forwards slightly, now trapping her hands. “I want to hear.”</p><p>She didn’t have much choice now, with her hands pinned to her sides as they were. She could hear herself, a litany of <em>oh, oh, oh’s. </em>Then she felt the knot of her climax begin to form, heat building deep inside her. “Keep going,” she told him urgently, surprised at herself. This was not a position she could usually come from. It was too intense.</p><p>Knowing her body almost as well as she did, Bran was surprised too, his movements faltering. “Really?”</p><p>“Yes, yes, it’s good,” she said, clenching around him as if she could hold him in place. “Don’t change it.”</p><p>Bran let go of her hands and his head dropped down so he could watch himself enter her, his hands at ten and two on her spread hips. “Should have videoed this,” he whispered, hips snapping, keeping up the same pace. Harder.</p><p>She half-laughed, half-moaned. It felt like he was was hitting the knot now, over and over, and her whole being was focused on the sensation, feeling it grow. “The Marrok— in his hotel room— watching video of himself fuck— <em>ohmygod</em>.”</p><p>Her orgasm hit her like a fist clenching tight, tight enough that it felt like she shrunk down into it, her body curling upwards like a bow, and then releasing in a wave of sharp, liquid heat over and over and over again. She could feel her mouth was open but no sound was coming out.</p><p>Then, when she could feel nothing but the ripples of aftershocks, she collapsed back into the mattress. Her fingers and toes were tingling. “Wow.” </p><p>Bran leaned over her and tucked her legs up closer to her body, a look of intense concentration on his face as he continued to pound into her, driving towards his own release. She grabbed hold of the back of his neck, pulling him tight, just close enough that they could kiss. His thrusts became frantic, irregular, and then he breathed out and froze, shaking with his climax.</p><p>She gently kissed the corner of his mouth, his chin, waiting until his body relaxed, then she slid her legs around him and cradled him close.</p><p>After a while, she felt moved to speak. She patted his back. “That was good.”</p><p>Bran made a noise that sounded like an affirmation. Then, “… just good?” he managed, lifting his head. He gave her a wry – no, <em>smug</em> grin.</p><p>Leah smiled widely. “Parts of it were sort of mind blowing.”</p><p>“Better.” He eased himself up off her and sat back, giving her body an almost clinical look. “I think we need to remember exactly what we did that was different.”</p><p>She giggled. Yes, clinical indeed. Leah nudged him with her knee and then rolled out of bed, heading for the bathroom. She heard Bran flop back onto the bed with a deep sigh. She peed, washed her hands and then picked up her nightdress on the way back to bed, pulling it on over her not-surprisingly-messy braid.</p><p>In her bed, Bran was collapsed on his front, face turned towards her and blinking slowly. He smiled at her, sweetly, and then his eyes closed and she knew he was asleep.</p><p>*</p><p>Oliver appeared as Leah was watching Bran cook breakfast and he was furious. About what, she didn’t know. He also smelled like a farm yard. Or, more specifically - “Why do you smell like horse?” A horse that had been ridden hard, no less. Nothing more distinctive than the smell of horse sweat.</p><p>Oliver sniffed his arm and appeared none the wiser. “Only method of transportation in the 1700s. Can I eat this?” He pointed at the plate of pancakes that Bran had been preparing for them both but didn’t pause for a response, just picked up a disk and shoved it into his mouth with an expression of rapture. “Oh my God, food.”</p><p>“You were in the 1700s? When? Where?” Bran asked, spinning around, his face lit up with child-like wonder.</p><p>As her brother decimated their breakfast, barely pausing to breathe, Leah rose to start to make more pancake batter, taking the spatula from her husband’s slack hand. She supposed that explained why Oliver no longer had a black eye. For all she knew, it had been weeks since he’d last been here.</p><p>“Rome. It’s always fucking Rome,” Oliver muttered darkly, eating another pancake with his fingers.</p><p>Frowning, Leah wondered how clean her brother was. “Get him a knife and fork, Bran.”</p><p>Bran did so and nudged Oliver into a chair at the table. Maple syrup and fruit were placed in front of him. “We don’t swear in this house,” Bran said lightly.</p><p>“I’ll make sure to step outside when I do then,” Oliver replied, equally lightly. “Nice pancakes. My compliments to the chef.”</p><p>Leah bit back her amusement and started to pour fresh batter onto the pan. Bran’s technique was better. Her circles tended to be a little wonky.</p><p>Eating as if it was going out of fashion, Oliver asked, “Any news on our recalcitrant father?”</p><p>“No. But we did discover Henry Patterson is a descendant of one of my husband’s bastards. Pre-sterilization, of course.”</p><p>Oliver choked. “Shh….ugar,” he amended, with a glance towards Bran. He put the fork down and poured himself a glass of OJ, clearing his throat. “Well. There you go then. He’ll be in the book.”</p><p>Leah’s lip curled. Of course. “Do you think he was in <em>the book</em> before I married him?”</p><p>“The book?” Bran queried.</p><p>“Probably,” Oliver sighed.</p><p>Leah started flipping pancakes. Aggressively. “Our father carried around a little book with pages of his little cryptic notes. It had detailed family trees of every magical family he’d ever come across.”</p><p>“Sounds secure.”</p><p>“Well, it’s impossible to read unless he wanted you to.” She pulled down another plate and stacked up a fresh set of pancakes, shoved them towards Bran, aggrieved. “For you.”</p><p>“Ah, why don’t you take these and sit at the table. I’ll finish off here,” Bran insisted, handing her the plate and giving her a little shove towards the table.</p><p>She sat and doctored her meal, stewing in her angry thoughts as she sliced banana, poured syrup and tried to muster the enthusiasm to eat. Her teeth were clenched so hard she could barely open her jaw to take a mouthful.</p><p>Bran sat down next to her and she could <em>feel</em> him looking at her, feel Oliver looking at her in the same way. Leah stabbed at a slice of banana. “I’m just so <em>angry</em>.”</p><p>Bran picked up his knife and fork. “Not that I think you don’t deserve to be angry, because you do, but what in particular has infuriated you about this revelation?”</p><p>She poured some more syrup on her pancakes. “I’m sick of it. All of it. The never ceasing manipulation of my life. Then. <em>Now</em>.” She shot Bran a look – he who was culpable of manipulating her to his desires as much as the rest of them.</p><p>Grimly, Bran didn’t deny this. Nor did he apologize, for he was not sorry for it. He would manipulate them all to meet his ends.</p><p>Instead, he poured her some orange juice and laid his hand on her thigh. “Charles has located Henry Patterson. You, Asil and I will go make our introductions.”</p><p>Oliver lifted his fork. “And me. Just in case his sorcerer genes are more concerning than I initially assumed.”</p><p>“Great. A roadtrip with Asil,” she muttered. Just what she needed.</p><p>“I thought we’d take the Jet, actually.”</p><p>“Not with him.” Leah used her own fork to point at her brother. “Not unless you want to crash immediately after take-off.”</p><p>Oliver held his hands up, as if the fork was a gun and she was threatening him. “I’ll… make my way there by alternative means. Just give me a time and the address.”</p><p>Bran looked pained. “Tardis?” he suggested, attempting to make light of what he really wanted to ask.</p><p>Oliver grinned. “You wish.” Then he caught Leah’s eye and the grin dropped from his face. “Sorry.”</p><p>*</p><p>Wisely recognizing that his Alpha’s mate was in no mood for his theatrics, Asil kept his mouth shut for much of the flight, answering Bran’s questions with faux-meekness and submissive eyes and not doing anything that might trigger Leah’s temper.</p><p>Similarly, Bran was unusually conciliatory.</p><p>“Are we trying for husband of the year?” she asked him tartly at one point as he fetched her a bottle of water without asking.   </p><p>He gave her a dry look. “I think I would have to work significantly harder for that.”</p><p>“That’s very true.” Two hundred years harder.</p><p>Across from them, Asil lifted the newspaper he was pretending to read even higher. As they started to descend, she heard him mutter something in Arabic which she imagined equated to deep relief. She did up her seatbelt and stared out of the window.</p><p>Oliver was waiting in the parking lot of the small airport with a car that had seen better days. He held open the front passenger door for Leah, who sighed. “No,” she said, resentfully educating him of the ways of werewolves. “Bran needs to drive and Asil will sit in front.”</p><p>Technically, <em>she</em> should sit in front but there wasn’t a chance in hell she’d have Asil behind her. Not in her current temper.</p><p>“Ah,” Oliver said, the word heavy with understanding. “I see. Well, here you go.” He handed the keys to Bran and hopped in the back.</p><p>“Sit behind me,” Bran adjured her, touching her waist.</p><p>She said nothing, just clenched her teeth. What did he think she was going to do? Poke Asil in the back with her knife? As pleasant as that sounded, not even Bran would defend her if she did something that ridiculous.</p><p>“Grumpy face, how was your flight?” Oliver beamed at her as she climbed in next to him.</p><p>Up front, Asil let out a small wheeze.</p><p>“I will stab you,” she warned him, slamming the door closed. Twice because she didn’t think the first time took. This car was a junker. “I know you can heal yourself but it will hurt like hell in the meantime.”</p><p>Oliver mock-sighed. “You were such a sweet child once.”</p><p>“Children, please behave. I don’t want to have to punish you,” Bran said in tones that brokered no argument.</p><p>Her brother’s eyes widened with mischief and Leah <em>just</em> managed to clap her hand over his mouth before he said something she would regret. “Do not,” she said through her teeth.  </p><p>The Moor turned in his seat, giving Oliver his most devastating smile. “I don’t believe we’ve met. You’re Oliver, yes?”</p><p>Reluctantly, Leah released her hold on her brother, who returned Asil’s smile with a sharp toothed one of his own. “And you’re Asil.”</p><p>“You’ve heard of me.” Asil’s dark eyes slanted suspiciously to Leah and then back. “Only good things, I hope.”</p><p>Oliver smiled obliquely, as if he had never been forced to listen to her rants about the Moor. He leaned forward to tap Bran on the shoulder, ignoring Asil who was close enough to bite. “By the way, the traffic on the I95 was horrific on the way here. We might want to take a more circuitous route.”</p><p>“Noted.”</p><p>Her brother sat back with a contented sigh, utterly unconcerned that he was strapped in a moving vehicle with two of the most powerful werewolves in the world and Leah, who could certainly hold her own. “I can’t believe you have your own plane,” he said.</p><p>She had nothing to say to that. She propped her head up against the window and proceeded to pretend to sleep so no one would talk to her.</p><p>*</p><p>Their strategy was a simple one. Once Oliver, and Bran, confirmed there appeared to be no significant scent of sorcery or witchcraft around the property, Leah would approach as a distraction from the front whilst Bran, Asil and Oliver advanced secretly from the back.</p><p>She walked up to the gate and pressed the intercom, whilst studying the device thoughtfully – it was an old model, something they might have had in the 90s before technology advanced.</p><p>The neighborhood was gracious, featuring other large 1920s Colonial Revival properties in brick and slate. Some, like this one, were gated and set back a little from the road. It felt quiet, sleepy. Maybe security didn’t need to be better because nothing ever happened around here.</p><p>After a while, the intercom buzzed and she heard the pedestrian gate snick open without the anticipated interrogation.</p><p>Curious.</p><p>She stuck her hands into her pockets as she strolled up the paved drive. This jacket had cut outs for access to knives and she had a third one in her boot. She was not carrying a gun – Connecticut being one of the most restrictive in the country when it came to gun laws. Being arrested for carrying without a permit was the sort of thing that would cause their lawyers problems and Bran didn’t like too much legal attention to be drawn to his family.</p><p>The front door – painted a traditional dark green – opened as Leah approached. A plump woman, wearing muted colors that brought out the copper tones in her brown hair, looked Leah up and down, her eyes widening.</p><p>“Where’s your stuff?” the wide eyed woman demanded.</p><p>Leah’s wide, friendly smile faltered. “My stuff?”</p><p>“You know. Supplies. Cleaning supplies. I told the agency I needed you to be <em>fully equipped</em>.”</p><p>“Ah. That message did not get passed along.” Leah sought wildly for an answer, maintaining an impassive expression. “However, I can make do. Do you have vinegar? Or lemons? Baking soda?”</p><p>Rather than respond to this creative suggestion, the woman stepped back with a huge sigh and let Leah into the house. Leah’s mouth dropped as she stood in a square foyer and her eyes swept over the open doors that led into various rooms. “My word.”</p><p>Another sigh. “I just… don’t even know where to start.”</p><p>Henry Patterson used this house to store things. That much was clear. Every shelf, every surface, every inch of floor – except a very narrow pathway that ran from room to room the width of two feet – was covered in <em>stuff</em>. Books. Papers. Files. Paintings. Objet d'art. In the middle of the room immediately on Leah’s left was a life-size marble statue of a woman holding a cornucopia. Demeter, Leah assumed. Goddess of the Harvest.</p><p>The woman sneezed.</p><p>And it was very dusty.</p><p>“He wants the whole place ‘spotless’.” She raked her hands through her hair, dragging it back into a ponytail and then dropping it. Her lightly lined face was etched with stress, pale grey eyes blown in panic. “I— just don’t know where everything came from. It wasn’t like this last month. I can’t even <em>get</em> to the cleaning supplies. I tried moving some things but they were too heavy and I can’t lift them and I don’t know what to do.”</p><p>“You’re…?”</p><p>“The housekeeper. Claire Barrows.”</p><p>“Nice to meet you.” Leah didn’t give her name, in case it had already been provided by the agency. She didn’t want to risk being asked for ID, which is certainly what she would have done had she hired a cleaning company. Either Claire was very trusting or she was simply too stressed to be concerned. “And where is ‘he’?”</p><p>“The owner. He’s gone out but he’ll be back in a couple of hours and he’ll expect to have seen progress.” Claire waved her hands around helplessly, eyes roaming the disorganization surrounding them. “He’s a very meticulous man, usually.”</p><p>Leah looked around, seeing a very fortuitous opportunity to investigate. “I’m very strong.” She smiled confidently at a doubtful Claire. “Why don’t you show me where the cleaning supplies are and I’ll see what I can do.”</p><p>*</p><p>Once she’d cleared a path to the utility room behind the kitchen and Claire had started to look less panicked, Leah excused herself to the bathroom and messaged Bran. Presumably the real agency person would turn up any moment and he needed to be rid of her.</p><p>After that, she received her instructions from Claire with barely concealed impatience – being told to do something by a human was not an experience Leah often tolerated with good grace – and got to work cleaning <em>around</em> everything.</p><p>It was nerve-wracking.</p><p>Quite a few things in the house were magical, that much was clear. Each time she brushed past something her senses thrummed in alarm. Bran’s safe room felt like this, which gave Leah the heebie-jeebies.</p><p>She was certain items like these <em>should not be mingling</em> and she certainly shouldn’t be handling them more than necessary, even with the gloves she was wearing. There were a pair of daggers she were pretty sure were fae and she was equally sure they were moving, there were some bottled creatures – just animal fetuses, she hoped – that made her throat tighten just looking at them and there was, without question, a wolf skull just casually mounted on top of a hat stand in one of the four front reception rooms. She told herself it was <em>just</em> a wolf skull but part of her knew it wasn’t.</p><p>She took photos, hundreds of photos, just in case it would later prove to be useful, turning on the flash because the drapes had been pulled tight across the windows. Presumably to protect the contents from harmful sunlight.</p><p>It turned out, Claire was very much <em>not</em> a trusting person and was likely regretting not asking after Leah’s credentials. She kept checking on Leah, each time trying to be stealthier than the last. At one point, she even took her shoes off so she could move more quietly along the floorboards, peeking around the corner into the room Leah was working in.</p><p>Naturally, Leah heard her pathetic attempts at stealth and was able to put her cell phone away and affect intense, diligent business but it was deeply irritating and she was hard pressed to present a friendly smile.</p><p>“Everything okay?” she asked the third time she caught her spying. Her tone was a little sharp – perhaps convincingly. Leah was certain no professional cleaner would appreciate being so obviously checked-up on.</p><p>“Yes, yes,” Claire said, a look of reluctant admiration on her suspicious face as she took in the progress. Her shoulders drew back, as if she’d made a decision. “You’re doing a sterling job. I’ll be upstairs if you need me.”</p><p>Over an hour into the process, Leah had re-organized the four front rooms to her liking, arranging things into the categories that Claire had specified, and swept, dusted, wiped down every available surface and poured filthy water down the outside drain numerous times.</p><p>She’d also processed a number of details.</p><p>Her nose told Leah that these items had all come from different locations recently, potentially where they had been stored, untouched, for years, if not decades. She could pin-point four distinct scents – was wavering on there perhaps being a fifth but she couldn’t quite isolate the variables. It would be better if she was in her wolf’s form.  </p><p>There were inches of dust on some items, layers of sticky grime and a distinct smell of neglect. Of her own initiative, Leah had set out a particular pile of items that needed a professional – crumbling statues, for instance, and delicate looking portraits. She’d also maneuvered a medieval gauntlet into what she hoped was a dormant wooden box. It was the only item that she could definitively tell was bad news - she had moved it with a pair of kitchen tongs, loathe to touch it for it smelled like it had once been submerged in blood. And black magic.</p><p>She paid particular attention to the paintings. Whilst she found no more of her husband, she found several of the apparently very vain Helena De Luca Patterson and, yes, even in 2D she still made Leah feel like wallpaper.</p><p>Finished with the rooms she had been instructed to look at, Leah had a quick nosy around the other rooms on the first floor. Several were locked, but there was also a conservatory filled with plants in various states of decay, a second, more functional kitchen with a small room attached to it that she assumed would have been for staff, and a dismal little bedroom with curtains from the 70s and an avocado-green bathroom suite that clearly had not been used for some years. There was a strong smell of damp.  </p><p>Finding nothing of any interest, Leah crept out into the foyer and stood at the base of the wide staircase, listening for the only other occupant of the house. As she did so, she heard a noise from the back and her brief flare of alarm was followed by the absolute certainty that it was Bran. Sure enough, she watched him walk silently out from the conservatory and pause in full view of her.</p><p>He lifted his hand in a genial wave and she rolled her eyes, making her way towards him.</p><p>They met, Leah gesturing to the second kitchen with a nod of her head. She half closed the door behind them, one ear listening for Claire or the returning owner.</p><p>“Well?” Bran asked quietly.</p><p>“I’ve spent the last hour combing through—” She paused because Bran’s eyes had narrowed suddenly. Quick as a flash, his hand flicked up and he grabbed something on her shoulder and tossed it away. She looked at her jacket curiously. “What was it?”</p><p>Bran rubbed his fingers together, inspecting them impassively. “Just a little… tourist. No matter. It’s gone now.”</p><p>“Well, if it’s magic, then I’m not surprised. The house is full of the sort of thing you would want locked up in your safe room. There’s a pair of— well, there they are.”</p><p>Alarmed, Leah nodded her head to the spice rack above the cooker where two black-handled daggers now sat on the bare shelves.</p><p>Observing them, Bran made a considering noise and spat something at them in a language close to German but not close enough for Leah to understand. Then he turned his attention back to her, apparently satisfied. “What else?”</p><p>She exhaled, feeling as she always did that the void of knowledge between herself and her mate was cavernous. “Apparently the owner will be back soon. Did you find the actual woman from the agency?”</p><p>“We did. And she was more than happy to be turned away. Apparently this house has a bad rep.” He wiggled his fingers and made what she assumed was supposed to be a spooky face. “It’s creepy.”</p><p>“The housekeeper says that all the items in the rooms are new. But wherever they’ve come from, they’ve been there a long time before they were brought here. And,” she lowered her voice as she imparted the knowledge she <em>did</em> have, “I think my portrait was stored with some of them.”</p><p>Bran’s face lit up. “Excellent work, Mrs. Cornick.”</p><p>As ever inflicted with the pack-animal’s desire to please their Alpha, Leah couldn’t help but preen. “The housekeeper says Patterson – presumably – will be back in the next hour or so. She’s upstairs. I was about to go up and ask her what else needs doing.”</p><p>He nodded. “Do that. I’ll have a look around downstairs, see if I can spot anything of any significance.” He patted her hip, then his eyes dipped to her mouth and to her surprise he gave her a quick kiss. “Be careful.”</p><p>Bran slunk out of the small kitchen, moving silently into the room opposite. As she watched, she suddenly found it difficult to even see him. Her eyes kept sliding away. She blinked, and he was there again, but then she found herself looking at a painting. She gave up, knowing she could find herself trapped in this game for some time.</p><p>Leah found Claire Barrows making a bed in what was obviously a master bedroom. Like the rest of the rooms that were occupied in the house, the drapes were pulled closed and the lights were on. Her own stealth abilities meant that she was able to watch the woman for several minutes, observe the swift, precise movements of a woman experienced with household tasks.</p><p>Claire turned to pick up the quilt where it had been temporarily folded on the <em>chaise longue</em> at the end of the bed. “Oh! Gosh, Amy, I didn’t see you there.”</p><p>Amy, it was then. Leah smiled. “Sorry, I didn’t want to interrupt. I think I’ve finished with downstairs. Is there more up here?”</p><p>“You’ve finished? Oh, you are a marvel.” This was said with genuine appreciation, any earlier suspicion apparently vanished in the face of a job well done. “Are you new to the agency? They’ve never sent you before.”</p><p>“Very new.”</p><p>Claire bustled past her. “Let me see. I’m still doing the master suite but there is a guest room that’s clearly been used. Could you take care of that?”</p><p>“Absolutely.”</p><p>The guest room was strangely large, larger than what Leah had seen of the master suite. As Claire walked around, pushing open drapes, opening the door to the bathroom, sighing and making a general commentary on what needed doing, Leah found herself trapped, absolutely trapped in the past, cold sweat crawling up her spine.</p><p>This room smelled like her father.</p><p>“Are you all right? You look pale.”</p><p>“Fine. I’ll—” Leah thumbed backwards. “Go fetch the cleaning things.”</p><p>She almost ran downstairs looking for Bran. She found him going through a stack of paintings, crouched on the floor. He looked up when she entered, his face turning from questioning to concerned.</p><p>Alarmingly for Leah’s sense of independence, she only <em>just</em> managed not to throw herself at him, seeking comfort in the middle of a crisis like a baby rather than a werewolf with centuries of experience and the mate of the all-powerful Marrok. “My father has been staying here. Recently,” she whispered. Her voice trembled.</p><p>“Do you want to leave?” he asked immediately, hand holding her elbow.</p><p>It hadn’t occurred to her that this was an option - but of course even if it was, it was not one she would take. Leah cleared her throat, trying to regain some composure, straightened her spine and put on a smile. “No, I am fine.”</p><p>She beckoned him and he followed her to the kitchen, where she had tidied up the cleaning products she had been using into a bucket with a wonky handle. “Where’s Oliver?”</p><p>“There’s a collection of statues in the overgrown yard that caused him consternation. Apparently they’re in the wrong century whereas all of this,” Bran gestured around, “is seemingly not concerning to him.”</p><p>Leah raised her eyebrows. The daggers, she had noticed, had materialized on the polished marble of the kitchen counter. She and her brother had very different ideas of what was ‘concerning’.</p><p>Bran’s eyes followed hers and he sighed out something in the language he had used before. To her he said ruefully, “They are very interested in me.”</p><p>In her experience, everyone was. Why would fae objects be any different? “Perhaps if you stopped talking to them? What is it? Some kind of old German?”</p><p>“Old Saxon.”</p><p>Of course. Probably he could speak it as well as he could speak Welsh. She meanwhile made do with English, conversational Spanish and a little German.</p><p>She lifted the bucket. “I’m supposed to be cleaning the guest room. I’ll… see if there is anything there but it would be helpful if Oliver could join me.”</p><p>“Is the housekeeper nearby?”</p><p>Leah nodded.</p><p>“I’ll see what we can do.” This time she was prepared - when Bran kissed her, she kissed him back, seeking her comfort from him in a way that did not make her feel weak. She felt him smile against her lips. He cupped her face, thumb stroking her cheek. “Don’t be distracting,” he instructed, sternly.</p><p>This warmed her more than anything else he could possibly say and she bounded up the stairs feeling galvanized.</p><p>*</p><p>Leah did a recce of the bedroom first, opening closet doors, looking under the bed, finding nothing – no clothes, no trinkets, nothing that screamed trouble. When she opened the bathroom door to do the same, Oliver was standing in the shower cubicle, looking at a shampoo bottle. “How—” Then she saw the window was open. That explained that.</p><p>Oliver’s expression was grim. “You’re right. He’s been here.”</p><p>“You can tell by the shampoo?”</p><p>“Well. It <em>is</em> the French brand he uses,” Oliver whispered, not without a hint of absurdity. “But, no. I found a cufflink under the bidet.”</p><p>Her brother held this up to show her the looping initials of JE engraved on the silver bauble. She rolled her eyes at this demonstration of her father’s hubris and then leaned back out of the bathroom, listening. She couldn’t hear Claire. “Come and check out the bedroom. But if I signal, run back in here and close the door so I can distract her.”</p><p>Leah started to strip the bed, tossing sheets and comforter into the hall. The towels in the bathroom followed shortly afterwards. Her nose told her that her father had stayed recently but not for a prolonged period of time. This wasn’t also his home, a worry that had been niggling at her. Which was comforting.</p><p>“Can you narrow down <em>when</em> he was last here?” Oliver asked quietly.</p><p>She started pulling the dresser away from the wall. As she had suspected the dust on the baseboards was an inch thick. She pursed her lips. “At a guess, around a week ago.”</p><p>Her brother nodded. “There’s nothing here. I might go and join your husband downstairs for the return of Patterson.”</p><p>Nerves tickled her. “All right. Do you need a hand out the window?”</p><p>“No. Asil’s waiting for me. You know, I pictured him taller,” Oliver added thoughtfully.</p><p>Leah grinned. She listened to her brother climbing out of the window and, with impeccable timing, the sound of footsteps coming from the master bedroom towards her. Claire Barrows poked her head through the door, smiling to see Leah on her hands and knees, wiping down the baseboards. “Really. You’re an absolute gem.”</p><p>The agency she used must be very poor, Leah thought. Bran’s recent entreaties aside, she had on occasion hired additional help at home, usually around the festive period or when Bran held one of his rare assemblies, and the staff had always been exceptional. “Is there a vacuum cleaner upstairs or should I get the one from downstairs?”</p><p>“There’s just a terrible Dyson up here.”</p><p>They both pulled an identical grimace. Leah stood, brushing her gloved hands together. “I’ll get the one from downstairs. Do you want me to take the rug up?”</p><p>“No, a vacuum is enough. This room is rarely used.”</p><p>Leah wasn’t going to argue. There really was only so far she was willing to go for this charade. She started downstairs once more but this time Claire joined her.</p><p>Though she knew her husband would hear, she nevertheless raised her voice. “So, what is he – some kind of art collector?”</p><p>“Something like that, though it’s never been as bad as this, at least not in the time that I’ve worked for him.”</p><p>“How long is that, then?”</p><p>“Nearly four years.”</p><p>She nodded, filing that piece of information away. “There were a few things that were in very bad condition.” Assured that both Bran and her brother were elsewhere, at the bottom of the stairs she gestured to the front room to the left of the entrance. “Here. I wasn’t sure what to do with them but I thought someone should look at them properly.”</p><p>Claire looked through the items thoughtfully. “Yes, you’re right. Why, this is practically falling apart.” She nudged a slab of crumbling stone with the toe of her sensible shoe. Leah had a horrible feeling said slab was Roman and had moved it on a tray she’d found in the kitchen. Somewhere in the house Bran was probably wincing. “I imagine a lot of this is very valuable, though you wouldn’t know it the way he treats things,” Claire replied.</p><p>In Leah’s mind, that was often the attitude of someone for whom value had another meaning than purely monetary. A lot of women liked fine jewelry, for instance, but diamonds had never held much interest for Leah, who wore her costly wedding rings for the effect rather than personal appreciation. And she’d seen first hand what the rush for gold had done to mankind.</p><p>It was clear that Claire was downstairs to get her lunch from the refrigerator. She gave Leah a slightly perturbed look as she took out a Tuppaware container from the middle shelf, as if she had just realized that Leah had arrived with nothing.</p><p>“I had an enormous breakfast,” Leah said, which was true, at least. She had eaten expecting to exert herself, though not in this way.</p><p>“Do you want anything? Tea? Coffee? There’s some bottles of sparkling water.”</p><p>Leah accepted a bottle of sparkling water and then picked up the vacuum cleaner so she could return to ‘work’. Bran stuck his head out of one of the back rooms as she climbed the stairs, winked at her, and then ducked back again.</p><p>She was just thinking that he should treat her to a big dinner later as a reward for cleaning someone else’s house when she heard the front door open. She turned, slowly.</p><p>“Oh,” Henry Patterson breathed, a long-fingered hand fluttering to his chest. “It’s you.”</p><p>*</p><p>Any further revelations were put to a halt when Claire hurried from the kitchen, still visibly chewing. She swallowed. “Mr. Patterson, you’re back. This is Amy – she’s been helping me in the house today. As you can see, we’ve really cleared a great deal.”</p><p>‘We’? Leah thought, any camaraderie for Claire Barrows disappearing.</p><p>Patterson could barely take his eyes from Leah. “I can see that.”</p><p>It was curious, seeing him afresh. The brief image she had of him before had been just that – brief. Seeing him now, she thought he had been practicing a little subterfuge with them when he had visited.</p><p>This man was not pot-bellied – he stood strong and tall, taller than Leah. Whilst not slender, his weight was more evenly distributed than her initial impression. His hair was flame-red, naturally wavy, and had been tamed to fall back from his forehead with some kind of product. When he’d been in their house, he’d worn casual clothes – similar to the sort of thing Bran wore. Jeans and layers. Zipped sweaters. Sneakers. This man was wearing a suit. A clearly very expensive suit.</p><p>Before, she would have said he was unusual but average looking. Now she would say he could be considered attractive.</p><p>He still didn’t look like he was in his sixties, though.</p><p>Claire continued to chatter at him, ignoring any strangeness that she might have observed between her employer and the temporary cleaner she had hired to help her. She escorted Patterson into one of the front rooms to show him the work ‘they’ had done and Leah, at a loss, debated over what she should do. Should she continue the ruse, and go upstairs to clean? Or join Claire in showing off the work that had been carried out in his short absence?</p><p>Her husband’s one-way telepathy made itself known. <em>He recognized you. Head upstairs. I’m sure he’ll come find you. I’ll be right there. </em></p><p>She did as he suggested, agreeing that it was better than involving the human woman in werewolf business. Bran did so like to keep the humans out of things. Not out of care, not really. More just they tended to make things messier.</p><p>Upstairs, Leah plugged in the vacuum cleaner and made a quick pass of the baseboards in the guestroom suite whilst imagining Bran scuttling up the wall outside. After a few minutes, he did indeed make make his appearance, pushing open the bathroom door. Oliver was behind him.</p><p>“Make yourself useful and polish the furniture,” she whispered, tossing the bottle of furniture polish to Bran, followed by a couple of cleaning rags.</p><p>Bran shrugged and set to work. Oliver looked mostly bemused. “I don’t clean much,” he admitted to her.</p><p>She rolled her eyes. “It’s not hard.”</p><p>They worked in silence. Well, Leah did – Bran clearly took it upon himself to give Oliver some lessons in basic household chores, murmuring instructions as they polished the dark furniture of the room. When Leah and Bran froze, their heads lifting, Oliver followed suit.</p><p>Lone footsteps trotted eagerly down the hallway to them. Recognizably not Claire’s.</p><p>There was a polite tap-tap-tap on the door. “May I enter?”</p><p>Puzzled at this behavior, Leah nonetheless nodded, fingers clasping the knife in her pocket. “Enter.”</p><p>An auburn head poked around the door, brown eyes sweeping the room to take in all the occupants. Apparently, they caused no fear for him, for Patterson entered, wreathed in smiles.</p><p>Patterson reached out with his hands. “Leah. It’s just… so wonderful to finally meet you.”</p><p>“Is it,” she said. Leah found her free hand being lifted and held gently in the man’s clasp. His hands were soft, as if they had never worked a day in their life. Or he was a creature just as she was and his skin took no imprint from day to day life any longer.</p><p>“What about me?” Oliver asked curiously.</p><p>The wide brown eyes swiveled to Oliver, patently unsure. Patterson gave Oliver a long look up and down and then a small head-shake. “I’m… not certain…?”</p><p>“I’m her brother.”</p><p>“<em>Oh.</em> Of course. <em>Oliver. </em>I’ve heard… so much.” Again, he looked Oliver up and down and if Leah wasn’t very much mistaken, there was a hint of appreciation there. “The resemblance is striking, isn’t it?” Finally, putting aside Oliver, Patterson took in Bran. His mouth twisted wryly. “Mr. Smith. Or should I say Mr. Cornick?”</p><p>Bran gave Patterson the full force of his most charming smile. Forgiving. Understanding. “Well played, Mr. Patterson.”</p><p>“You flatter me.” Bashfully, Patterson lowered his eyes. “I was merely well prepared for your effect.”</p><p>Carefully, Leah withdrew her hand from Patterson’s gentle grip. And stuck it into her other pocket, playing with the second knife. “You recognized me, then. The day in the house.”</p><p>“Indeed I did – I was hoping to see you, of course. It was my purpose for visiting but your husband implied there was no lady of the house and there was a disappointing lack of photographs on the mantle! I had almost lost hope until the last minute and there you were, peeking your head above the couch. Clear as day.”</p><p>“You’ve been trying to find me?”</p><p>Patterson waved a hand. “I. Your father. Many people. Come.” He turned to open the door. “Mrs. Barrows has stepped out on an entirely fabricated urgent errand for me so let me make you some coffee. I cannot believe the magic you have wrought in my home. I was honestly despairing.”</p><p>He trotted off, clearly expecting them all to follow.</p><p>Leah cast Bran and Oliver a bemused look. “Well?”</p><p>“I say follow him. He’s no full-blooded sorcerer that I can tell,” Oliver advised.</p><p>Bran seemed to agree. He looked more amused than anything, bouncing backwards and forwards on the balls of his feet. Leah shrugged and set off.</p><p>They found Patterson in the big family kitchen that Leah had spent part of the day clearing of all the detritus. He was setting out a French press and delicate, antique cups. “I found some cookies. Gingersnaps,” he announced with obvious delight.</p><p>“I love gingersnaps,” Leah’s husband stated.</p><p>Leah and Oliver exchange a look of general bemusement. In her wildest imaginings, coffee and gingersnaps would very much not have been how she envisioned this meeting to go. </p><p>“Let’s go through to the study.” He lifted the tray, the cups chinking precariously, and headed down the hallway to a room that had previously been locked. The door was open now and, to her relief, a clean and light room welcomed them. About twice the size of Bran’s office, a small linen-covered couch and two matching armchairs were set around a coffee table. Facing the French doors out into the back yard was an ornate, antique desk. Georgian, she thought.   </p><p>“Please,” Patterson said, gesturing to the seats. He took one of the armchairs, leaving Leah and Bran to share the couch and Oliver to sprawl, nonchalantly, in the remaining chair. “I’ll be mother, shall I?”</p><p>Not for the first time in her life, Leah wished she had the facility to talk to her husband mind-to-mind. <em>What the heck</em>, she would have to said to him. Possibly with stronger language. “Cream and sugar for my husband and I,” she said helpfully instead. “Oliver?”</p><p>“Black. One sugar.”</p><p>Coffee was duly served and Patterson sat back with obvious contentment, sipping his own, the delicate china looking small in his hand. “Ah, now that’s lovely, isn’t it?”</p><p>Were they going to have polite conversation now? Was that it? She had <em>three knives</em> on her person. Somewhere outside, Asil was probably testing the garroting wire he carried with him.</p><p>“Delicious,” she murmured, sniffing the coffee before taking a very, very small sip and swishing it around her mouth before swallowing. If it was poisoned, she would know it soon enough. She would give it a few minutes before she took another sip.</p><p>Bran put his hand on her knee, a gesture that Patterson followed. “So can we assume it was you who sent Leah the painting?”</p><p>“Yes, indeed! It was in my collection and I had long thought to return it to you.” This was delivered with a bright smile and equally bright eyes. “Did you like it?”</p><p>“Were you aware it was ensorcelled?” Bran continued, saving Leah from having to answer.</p><p>Patterson blinked. “Indeed? I was… not.”</p><p>Truth.</p><p>He frowned, deeply, the corners of his mouth dimpling. “How disappointing. And I thought it such a charming painting.” To Leah, he said with a renewed brightness, “You, my dear, haven’t changed a <em>day</em>.”</p><p>Something about this man was very strange, Leah decided, utterly disarmed. She took another sip of her coffee, damn the consequences. And reached for a cookie. “You said your reason for visiting our house was to see me.”</p><p>“Yes. We’ve been searching for you, your father and I, for many years. Whilst we’d managed to trace you to Montana, specifying <em>where</em> in that sparsely populated state you were was quite another matter. Your people,” for this he aimed a stern glare Bran’s direction, “are not chatty.”</p><p>Bran toasted Patterson with his cup. “You relieve me.”</p><p>“I’m sure. But it has been a real bore, I can tell you. Oh, here,” Patterson put down his cup. “Now that I know the painting was a bust, let me show you some of my other favorites.” He sprung up, hurrying to one of the bookcases that sat either side of the fireplace. “Now, where is it… it can’t have gone far… ah-hah!”</p><p>He pulled something from the bookcase and as he did so, a photograph fluttered to the floor. “Oh dear, that won’t do.” He scooped it up and returned to his seat, a lock of his red hair curling over his forehead fetchingly. “Here.”</p><p>“Good Lord,” Leah murmured, holding the black and white photograph. A row of young women in short skirts, holding champagne coupes. Leah was in the middle, head tilted to a coquettish angle, lips painted. She even remembered the dress. It had been a silvery white.</p><p>Bran leaned against her side. “I concur,” he said with a smile. “When was that taken?”</p><p>“New Year’s Eve, 1924.” As if the hats weren’t enough of a giveaway. “I was in New York.”</p><p>Without saying anything, she pointed to the woman on the far right and Bran nodded. He recognized her. Isabelle. Long ago, she and Leah had been something close to friends. They had last touch in the latter half of the Twentieth Century and she had to be honest, when she had heard the chaos that she had wrought in Leo’s pack she had not been very surprised.</p><p>“I have others. But that, I admit, is my favorite.” Patterson held up up a slim photograph album, the kind Leah had once kept before digital cameras and smartphones became the thing. He proffered this to Leah with an open-faced eager look she associated with the young.</p><p>Leah put down her bone china coffee cup and began to flick through the album, her husband pressed up against her side. There weren’t that many photographs, thank goodness. Another from the New Year’s Eve in 1924. Another was actually a clip from a newspaper, at a fundraiser Leah had attended for the war effort and she was clearly not the focus of the photograph, just a bystander. One, concerningly, was a photograph of her at the market in Eureka. Perhaps in the 70s.</p><p>“I remember this coat,” Bran murmured, tapping that photograph.</p><p>“Yes. It was rather a statement.” Ankle length, in buttery camel suede with a shearling trim. She probably had it somewhere still - stored until it came back into fashion, which things always did.</p><p>As the photographs became more present-day, it was clear that the focus of their search had been narrowed down to Montana. She turned the page and stopped abruptly. It was a snap of her, Kara and Sage, at the mall. And it was a picture of them specifically. A little blurry, which suggested it had been taken at long range. She felt a thrum of disquiet go through her husband that mirrored her own.</p><p>“That was the closest we got. We were able to track down the woman on the left – she worked for a real estate company until her mysterious disappearance a few months ago. A very helpful young lady.”</p><p>Bran huffed out a breath. <em>That explains the houses, then.</em></p><p>“But when I ran her name, Carhardt, through some fellows I know, they came up with a red flag or two. Seems Sage <em>Carhardt</em> didn’t exist. At least, not until twenty years previously. After her strange disappearance last year, I heard a rumor about the Hardesties making a big move on the Other scene. Nasty bunch,” he said with a sneer. “Of course your father put two and two together.”</p><p>Leah handed the photo album to Oliver. “His book. He has the Hardesty family tree.”</p><p>“<em>Hardolfsty</em>,” Oliver muttered, as if remembering. He didn’t open the photo album. He seemed to be completely captivated by Patterson. Could hardly take his eyes off him.</p><p>Brown eyes slanted in Oliver’s direction and then away again. “Just so. Grandma Daisy is a woman not to be reckoned with.”</p><p>“Have you met?” Bran, naturally, wanted to know.</p><p>“No, indeed. I am but a pawn in this world.” Again, that quick, bright smile. Instead of being demure, surely what he had intended, it was almost sultry – the smile, the dark eyes and the heavy dark eyelashes, far darker than his auburn hair.</p><p>He really was the spitting image of his great-great-grandmother. It was utterly mindboggling. What had Bran said the other day? <em>Genetics are a strange thing.</em></p><p>Leah finished her coffee and put her cup down, rubbed her hands on her knees before folding them neatly. “What does my father want with me?” she asked, the only question she wanted an answer to now.</p><p>“To reconnect, of course.” Patterson’s hands fluttered again to his chest. He was a dramatist. “To right the wrongs of the past. He regrets, <em>terribly</em>, what happened between you.”</p><p>The offspring of Jonathan Eldon snorted their disbelief.</p><p>“I know, I know. I understand why that might be hard to believe.” Patterson sighed. He batted his eyelashes. “Great men can be… a challenge. You must know this, Mrs. Cornick.”</p><p>“I think he’s implying you’re a great man, Bran,” Oliver said drily.</p><p>Leah looked at her ‘great man’. Bran was smiling blandly, still sipping his coffee. “I think I’d like to leave, now.” They had the answers they had come for and her chest was tight to near-bursting.</p><p>Without pausing, Bran put his cup down and stood, holding out his hand to help her to standing. “Certainly. Patterson, it’s been illuminating. And the coffee <em>was</em> delicious.”</p><p>“Thank you. It’s Sulawesi Toraja. Please – let me give you my number. Just in case.” Patterson rose and went to his desk. He proffered a business card and Oliver took it. “My personal number,” he said and for some reason, his cheeks turned a little pink.</p><p>Oliver slid the card into his pocket and then followed Bran and Leah from the room. Leah focused on the front door, almost desperately.</p><p>“Do call. Or message me. Anytime,” Patterson expressed somewhat plaintively.</p><p><em>Not a chance in hell</em>, she thought. Then she stopped abruptly, sudden enough that Bran was suddenly pressed up against her spine. “Why didn’t he just come visit me himself?” Leah asked.</p><p>“Because of the defenses you put up, my dear. The house itself is lit up like a beacon but then almost immediately after I visited, the rest of the territory was suddenly positively imbued with energy. We assumed if he stepped foot on your land, he would quite go up in flames.” Patterson beamed. “He was most impressed with you.”</p><p>The tightness in her chest abruptly dropped. She suddenly felt quite queasy.</p><p>Bran tucked his arm about her waist and propelled her out of the house. “Thank you. Goodbye.”</p><p>*</p><p>Given the context, dinner was chaotic. Her brother sunk a bottle of what he said was very sub-standard wine, almost entirely to himself, and it loosened his tongue in a way she had never seen before.</p><p>He rested his head in his hands and stared down at the business card. “I have <em>vastly</em> underestimated him.”</p><p>Leah was on her second dish of homemade mac and cheese. It had been all she wanted to eat. Apparently whilst her brother turned to alcohol, she turned to dairy. She was considering ordering a milkshake. She lifted her head, looking for the waitress. “Actually, I really would like a milkshake.”</p><p>Bran picked up the laminated menu immediately. He had continued his conciliatory husband routine, to Asil’s abject astonishment and dismay, and responded to all her requests with affirmatives. “I assume strawberry?”</p><p>“You assume correctly,” she said, before stuffing a large, unladylike spoonful of cheese and pasta into her mouth.</p><p>Her husband stood to go and find their waitress. For he was both conciliatory and <em>expedient.</em></p><p>“When was the last time you spoke to your father, Oliver?” Asil asked, sipping his iced tea. He had kept mostly quiet during the meal, having spent much of his time outside of the house listening to conversations rather than being part of them. Distantly, Leah was enjoying being in the know for once.</p><p>“Properly, perhaps half a century ago.” Oliver picked up his glass, drained it, and then poured himself the remaining inch, swirling the bottle in disappointment. “We managed a polite twenty minutes on the then President’s economic policies before it collapsed into its usual screaming recriminations and…” He spun a finger. “Fireballs.”</p><p>Fireballs, Leah mouthed to herself. She had witnessed many of their arguments before and they had not usually involved fireballs, though one time their father had thrown a vase at him. She pushed the empty dish away from her and slumped back in her seat. She was still a little hungry; hopefully the milkshake would fix that.</p><p>Asil continued. “Did he ask after his daughter?”</p><p>Bran slid back into his seat. “On its way,” he said to her, squeezing her leg and then leaving his hand there as he had done so in front of Patterson. It was nice. Reassuring. If they’d been alone, she would probably have climbed on his lap. She was feeling utterly confused and he was a very solid, reassuring presence to her. <em>Bran</em> was consistent, unchanging. For this moment she could appreciate that.</p><p>“He did not. But, then, Leah and I hadn’t actually seen each other since—” Oliver squinted. “Um. I forget the year.”</p><p>“1810. My wedding,” she supplied, easily enough.</p><p>Bran squeezed her leg again. “He was at our wedding?”</p><p>“No. He was there the day before. Briefly,” Leah added. Very briefly. She’d been so shocked to see him she’d barely uttered five words.</p><p>“Needed to check she even wanted to marry you, didn’t I? Because I’d done such a sterling job the last time.” Oliver picked up the empty bottle of wine as if it was very heavy. “I’m going to get another bottle.”</p><p>He walked off, something of a swagger in his step, and accosted the harassed waitress. Such was his charm that Leah watched as the woman went from irritated to soft and malleable with a few of her brother’s words.</p><p>“If she had any sense, she’d cut him off,” Asil said thoughtfully, leaning forward to pick up the empty glass of wine. He sniffed it and winced. “He will have a terrible headache tomorrow.”</p><p>Leah’s milkshake arrived and she slanted her eyes to Bran in amusement to find her husband was already waving his spoon at the mountain of whipped cream that decorated her frozen treat, face little-boy-happy. “Yes. I’ll be just a moment. You can have the cherry to keep you going.”</p><p>“That’s quite revolting,” Asil said, watching Bran scoop up the cream.</p><p>Leah didn’t like to agree with Asil but she did. However, it brought Bran happiness so she ate her cherry without comment whilst Bran licked his spoon.</p><p>Oliver returned with his bottle of wine and a glint in his eye. “She gave me her number.”</p><p>“Two numbers in one day. Aren’t you popular,” Leah pointed out, just to see his cheeks flush.</p><p>Her brother scowled at her. “That’s not what happened. I also ordered pie.”</p><p>Hmm, Leah thought. She decided to change the subject, rather than interrogate her brother’s sexual inclinations in front of her husband and their Third. “If Father actually stepped in our territory, would he go up in flames?”</p><p>“Probably not. Unless it was your intention?”</p><p>Leah shook her head. “I don’t think so.”</p><p>“Well, then there’s still a slight risk. You were always a very angry little girl.” He poured himself a fresh glass of wine and then offered the bottle politely, but unnecessarily, to everyone else who had already declined. “It wouldn’t surprise me if there was some kind of subconscious ill intention in your working.”</p><p>Bran gave up her milkshake and watched as Leah pulled the straw from its paper packaging. “So it is a working? Leah,” he gave her a dry-as-paper smile, “implied to me it was nothing more than draining a battery.”</p><p>“It’s a working. A reverse one I concocted to work for her. Usually we <em>build</em> power. We don’t drain ourselves of it.” Oliver took a sip of his wine, winced, and sat back. “I’m not even sure I could. It’s unnatural.”</p><p>Leah paused mid-slurp, the frosted cream melting on her tongue. “Thank you.”</p><p>Unrepentant, he saluted her with the glass. “So. He’s been searching for you since the 20s. At least. Do you know what happened in the 1920s?”</p><p>“Prohibition?” Asil suggested quickly.</p><p>“Women’s suffrage?” was Leah’s contribution, taking her mouth from the straw. The milkshake was delicious. She thought it was actually made with strawberries rather than some powdered concoction. The mac and cheese had been very good, too. She hadn’t had much hope for the quality of the food when she’d seen the laminated, slightly sticky menus but she was happy to be wrong. A sub-standard meal would probably have sent her over the edge.</p><p>“Movies with soundtracks?” Bran added thoughtfully. To Leah, “Do you remember going to see Juan Don?”</p><p>“Of course I do.”</p><p>Whilst the Aspen Creek contingent exchanged smiles at their combined wit, Oliver gave them all a deeply disappointed look. “No. He married again. And she died in childbirth.”</p><p>All traces of amusement disappeared around the table. “I didn’t know that,” Leah said quietly.</p><p>“No. I didn’t until years later. He didn’t tell me. It appeared.” From his inner pocket, he pulled a small black book, a copy of their father’s. Both Asil and Bran eyed this item with visible eagerness but Oliver just cracked it open, folded back the book to the page he wanted and handed it to Leah.</p><p>Leah saw, not for the first time, her own immediate family tree. Their father’s name was linked to three women, names indecipherable. From the first, there was a line down to Oliver’s name. From the second, there was hers. And then there was a third, crossed through. “I didn’t know he could do that. Update your book.”</p><p>“He can’t. One of my earliest workings was to link our pages together. But he does something to the names of the women so I can’t read them.”</p><p>Much as he had been in Patterson’s house, Bran was pressed against her side, gazing down at the page with interest. “You don’t know who your mother is either?”</p><p>“I remember her. I don’t know her name. But then most little children don’t know their parents’ real names,” Oliver pointed out. “I think Leah’s mother was one of Elizabeth’s maids of honor. Elizabeth courted magic.”</p><p>It was a theory Leah had heard before. Elizabeth I had also used her court as almost a finishing school for the young aristocratic ladies of the time. But it was just a theory. Oliver did not know any better than she did. “Why would he mask the names?”</p><p>“So I can’t go back and interfere, I imagine. Though why he thinks I would do such a suicidal thing—” Oliver sighed and held out his hand for the book, which Leah returned.</p><p>She picked up her milkshake again. “My poor mother,” she muttered, shaking her head for this woman she did not know, or even love. But she had imagined it a few times, the thought of having a child stolen from her. It broke her heart.</p><p>*</p><p>The motel Bran had selected was convenient only for its proximity to the airport. Otherwise it was entirely average, albeit spotlessly clean. If the room had smelled or there had been evidence that she would be sharing a room with any wildlife, she would have insisted they moved.</p><p>Instead, she had an entirely adequate shower and prepared for bed without any nasty surprises under the sheets.</p><p>She thought of Patterson more than once. His strange interest in her. His mannerisms. And more specifically how he had managed to slip her husband’s personal magic.</p><p>Bran emerged from the bathroom wiping himself down with the tiny, scratchy motel towel.</p><p>She looked him up and down. He had a lovely body, he really did. “I wonder if he could teach me to be <em>well prepared</em> for your effect.”</p><p>“Are you flirting with me?” he asked, hanging the towel on the bathroom door.</p><p>She supposed she was. She tucked herself under the sheet. “If you had to ask, I’m clearly not doing it right.”</p><p>A smile spread across his face. “No, you’re doing it right. Are you finished in the bathroom?”</p><p>Leah nodded, so he closed the door and climbed into bed with her. To her surprise, he made a move on her immediately, his hand scooting up her T-shirt to cup her breast, his mouth seeking hers. She enjoyed this for a moment but then put a hand on his shoulder and pushed him back. At his surprised, enquiring look, she said, “You know the walls are paper thin.” If she wasn’t very much mistaken, Asil’s bed shared a wall with theirs.</p><p>Bran’s lips quirked. “I doubt Oliver will hear anything in his state and do you really care about Asil?”</p><p>This thought percolated deliciously in her brain. No, she did not care. In fact, she could think of nothing more pleasing than Asil knowing just how much enjoyment his precious Marrok and she wrought from each other. If anything, it was something of a turn-on. She supposed this went hand in hand with her newly discovered exhibitionist streak.</p><p>So thinking, Leah shoved Bran onto his back and straddled him. She reached for the hem of her T-shirt and pulled it off.</p><p>“I already like where this is going,” Bran murmured, stroking his hands up her torso to cup her breasts, his eyes sparkling.</p><p>She leaned down and kissed him lingeringly, enjoying herself but not for long as she began her descent down his sternum. She dragged her nails slowly over the bumps of his muscles, feeling them flutter in her wake. “Feel free to be as noisy as possible,” she whispered against his skin, pressing kisses to the body that she loved, tugging at the waistband of his shorts to release him.</p><p>He sighed, clearly contentedly, and stroked her hair. “You’re a terrible, terrible person.”</p><p>*</p><p>Afterwards, sleepily listening to the sound of her brother’s snores, Bran stroked her back and whispered, “In the interest of transparency, I have to talk to you about something.”</p><p>“Mmm?”</p><p>He stroked her shoulder, moving her hair from one side to the other. “It’s about the fertility clinic.”</p><p>This was unexpected. Her eyes opened wide, staring at the digital clock on the bedside table. “What about it?” she asked, her voice coming out louder than she had expected. Next door, she heard Asil roll over.</p><p>“It occurred to me that the failure at the clinic was rather… timely.”</p><p>Leah pushed herself up on her elbows and turned to look at him. “What do you mean?” She shook her head as a cascade of hideous thoughts pushed their way in to her already over-full brain. “No, I know what you mean. What are you <em>saying?</em>”</p><p>His eyes widened with imperious calm. “Don’t panic. I just looked into it a little more, to confirm that there <em>was</em> a liquid nitrogen failure.”</p><p>“Oh my God.” She sat up, her heart pounding. “You had me worried for a moment there.”</p><p>“Mmm. Both members of your family having an overt interest in your ability to bear children, it did seem wise to investigate.”</p><p>She blew out a breath. “Yes. I guess I can see that. It wouldn’t have occurred to me.”</p><p>Leah could imagine it all too easily now. Her father somehow – perhaps through Patterson – discovering there was genetic material available to him to fuel the next generation. Her brother destroying it. She felt a flare of anger. She could excuse him for what he did, two-and-a-half centuries ago. She was not certain she would have been able to excuse him for such an act in the present day.</p><p>“You never told me.”</p><p>Leah gave in to cowardice and slid down back into the bed, turning her back on him. “No. Can we not talk about it?”</p><p>Bran’s hand rested on her back. “I would like to, now.”</p><p>Her mate had a real art of making a command sound like a gentle request. She hunched her shoulders, fighting down that damn lump in her throat again. “Is there really anything to say?”</p><p>The hand moved, stroking down her spine and then back up again. “I always thought you didn’t want children.”</p><p>Oh God. “<em>You </em>don’t want children.”</p><p>His hand kept stroking. “So you didn’t want children because I didn’t?”</p><p>“It’s more complicated than that, Bran.”</p><p>“Then explain it to me.”</p><p>She pressed her lips together. “I— sometimes I think I convinced myself I didn’t. Sometimes it really felt like I didn’t care. Children are fragile. Weak. Human. And other people’s children are annoying,” she added, hotly, because she believed that too. <em>Charles</em> had been annoying – though of course there were other factors involved in her lack of relationship with her step-son. “If you don’t think you can have them you create all kinds of rationales for why you might be better off.” And she had been creating those rationales for a very, very long time.</p><p>Just as before, Bran was quiet. His hand kept stroking her back, however. Up and down.</p><p>“And you don’t want them,” she whispered into the silence, swallowing hard. “So in the end what does it matter what I want?”</p><p>At this, her mate suddenly moved, insinuating himself over her until he lay long and heavy over her back, his face tucked in to her neck. After the initial surprise, the weight of him was absurdly comforting, cocooned as she was in a truly safe space, if only physically so. Bran had never made her feel particularly emotionally safe. This conversation was testament to that.</p><p>Leah sighed, though, as the weight and warmth of him started to relax her tensed muscles. “Obviously, I had been willfully blind to the potential risks of our two genetics mixing.” Witch and sorcerer – surely a dreadful combination. And the risk of her father, a man who had <em>not</em> forgotten her, who had been searching for her, being overly interested.</p><p>“That is a consideration,” Bran murmured by her ear. It tickled a little. She curled her shoulder up and he huffed. “Why didn’t you tell me what you were doing?”</p><p>“Because I probably knew it was futile.”</p><p>He moved his head, not nodding in agreement, she thought, but getting more comfortable. He rested his cheek against hers so they were looking in the same direction. “I was away for a chunk of that summer. Was it then?”</p><p>She nodded. It would have been challenging, injecting herself with hormones with Bran around. No sex, too. She would have struggled to explain that.</p><p>“Did you look into surrogates as well?”</p><p>“A little. Anna has done quite a bit of research,” she whispered. “I listened to her.” And through Anna, Sam, of course, who was a font of information. She could never have spoken to Sam directly. He would have told his father.</p><p>It seemed Bran had no more questions and they lay there, their breathing synchronizing. She felt surprisingly calm. Unburdened. The slate of their marriage was now clean, at least on her side, so that was something. Perhaps they could begin again.  </p><p>*</p><p>Of the werewolf contingent, Leah was last out of their motel rooms. Bran had sprung from their bed just after dawn, as if he hadn’t had as little sleep as she, and gone to fetch Asil to hunt down breakfast.</p><p>She emerged to find him leaning against the junker of a car, a breakfast burrito in his hand, which he presented to her. “For you.”</p><p>Leah accepted this with as much politeness as she could muster given the inevitable quality of the item. Asil was also leaning against the car but closer to the trunk. He was standing oddly and she bit into the tortilla-wrapped ham, cheese and egg combination, studying him. “Why is Asil holding his arm like that?”</p><p>Bran smiled but it did not reach his eyes. “I’m not sure. It might be broken.”</p><p>“Uh-huh.” Leah finished the burrito in three further bites and then brushed her hands together, having had time to asses the various clues she had been given. “Do you mind getting my brother up? I tried, earlier, but he was non-verbal. Perhaps it needs a man’s touch.”</p><p>“Certainly.” Bran almost skipped towards Room 4, rapping on the door and turning the handle, the lock mysteriously giving way. Leah heard her brother swear.</p><p>Not really relishing her task, Leah approached her least favorite pack member, outside of some of the wildlings. At her expectant gesture, Asil released his hold on his arm and allowed her to look at it without complaint.</p><p>“What did you do?” she asked, no nonsense.</p><p>The Moor, one of the most terrifying werewolves in existence, who had once deliberately made her weep with fear for the gall of flirting with him, winced as she pulled his arm straight. “Nothing that bears – <em>ah</em> – repeating.”</p><p>“You said something about me then.” None too gently, Leah maneuvered his arm, listening for any sounds of crackling. She pressed at the usual fracture points, twisted his wrist from side to side. Bran wasn’t usually given to violence within his more stable pack. Usually, if he was moved to defend her, it would be verbally. “Well, if it’s broken, it must be minor.”</p><p>“I know that,” he said testily, taking his arm back and cradling it. He looked a little sorry for himself, the way everyone always did when Bran was upset with them.</p><p>“Do you want to Change?” Some might have thought her tone was sympathetic. She was merely being practical. “We have time.”</p><p>Asil grumbled, his handsome eyes lowered to the floor. “I was told I wasn’t allowed to.”</p><p>He really was being punished then. Leah shook her head. “It must have been very bad.” She almost wished she knew, so she could relish his punishment. She always enjoyed it when Bran defended her and if it was against Asil, it would be even sweeter. “You usually know better.”</p><p>Asil’s dark look, and any possible retort, was interrupted by a pained groan as Leah’s brother stepped into the world. Or, rather, staggered.</p><p>She took one look at his gray face and laughed. “A little worse for wear, are we?”</p><p>“I want to die.” He pulled at his skin with both hands. “Does anyone have any water?”</p><p>Bran slapped Oliver on the back. Hard. “In the car. Let’s get going. You’re in the back,” he said to Asil without looking at him.</p><p>Asil sighed. “Yes, sir.”</p><p>Really, Leah was absolutely <em>dying</em> to know what he had said and was wracked with the frustration of knowing she never <em>would</em> know. Bran was no tattle tale and Asil would never reveal the reason for his punishment.   </p><p>So she sat on the plane for several hours looking between her cheerful husband – who completed several crosswords and a complicated mathematical challenge in a newspaper – and a remorseful Asil, and was none the wiser.</p><p>After they dropped Asil off at his house, she looked mutely but pleadingly at Bran. Her husband shook his head, stern and disapproving. “You know better.”</p><p>She pouted. Sometimes that worked. “But it was about me, was it not? Surely I have the right to know?”</p><p>“It would do neither of you any good.”</p><p>Leah rolled her eyes and slumped against the car window. “Fine.” They turned into their drive. The lights were on and she felt a strong sense of relief to be home. “Thank you, though. For whatever it was.”</p><p>Bran grunted. “It gave me no pleasure.”</p><p>*</p><p>The next few days were filled with pack responsibilities that both Bran and Leah had let slip in the weeks prior. Bran took off with Charles to commune with the wildlings that usually caused them the most trouble and she and Anna ran some more training exercises with the new Changes.</p><p>Teaching new werewolves to use their senses properly was always a chore – no less so when three out of the four were city bred and Leah seemed to be teaching them what she considered to be basic life skills as well.</p><p>Not that the full shrieking fit Tamara threw over a harmless garter snake wasn’t funny, of course.</p><p>As was her nature, Anna was very sympathetic. “I remember my first rattler. Freaky,” she said, patting Tamara on the shoulder and offering her water.</p><p>“I hate snakes,” Tamara said, panting and wide-eyed, looking around her as if she expected a snake to perhaps fall from a tree at any moment. She took a grateful gulp of water and handed the canister back to Anna. “All snakes.”</p><p>“Mmm. Well, most can’t do you much harm now,” Leah said practically, one eye on Gregoire and Kendra, who were both investigating the snake with curiosity. Gregoire had a stick. Bogdan – who’d grown up in rural Colorado – was standing to one side, shaking his head. “Even the rattlers’ venom won’t take you down.”</p><p>This didn’t seem to give Tamara much confidence. It was obviously one of those fears that wasn’t rational. Or, Leah corrected, had <em>once</em> been rational and was now irrational.   </p><p>“We’ll have to work on that,” she said brusquely. Some form of exposure therapy, perhaps. Tag was very good with snakes. Perhaps she could spend some time with him. “Any other fears? Toads, perhaps? Lizards? Spiders?”</p><p>Tamara pulled a face. She was flushed red now, a healthy improvement on the pale, shaking fear of earlier. “No. It’s always been snakes.”</p><p>“What about the rest of you?” she asked.</p><p>“This is a no judgment question,” Anna added with a sweet smile.</p><p>“Oh, no, I’m absolutely judging you,” Leah corrected tartly. “So spit it out and get it over with.”</p><p>“I don’t really like water,” Kendra said, not meeting Leah’s eyes. She was not very dominant at all. Not like Tamara who, snakes aside, was very bolshie and Leah had to put her down several times.    </p><p>Leah frowned. That was no good. Werewolves had far denser bones – and could sink quickly. “Swimming lessons for you, then.” And perhaps her future pack could be in an arid location.</p><p>“Worms,” Gregoire admitted.</p><p>“Good grief,” she muttered. She had no solution for that one, except to suggest he not do much digging. “You?”</p><p>Bogdan, to her relief, placidly shook his head. Then he scratched his chin. “Actually, maybe grizzly. Water buffalo.”</p><p>By a country mile, he was her favorite. “Entirely reasonable. Right. Well, this has been illuminating.” It started to rain, precipitating Leah’s next statement. “Let’s head back.”</p><p>They trudged back, Anna still trying to console a visibly shaken Tamara and Leah ignoring them. Gregoire, she could hear, was making Bodgan chuckle with some childhood story featuring a traumatizing experience with some maggots. She waved them off to their temporary homes and asked if Anna was going to stay for dinner, half hoping she would say no.</p><p>Anna beamed. “Love to.”</p><p>Really though, Anna was easier to be around when neither of their husbands were present, Leah had found. This was no doubt a reflection on Leah herself rather than Anna but that was as far as she would allow her self awareness to go.</p><p>Leah pushed a fresh lasagna in the oven and made a salad whilst Anna pitched her a murder mystery series she was reading. “You’d love the lead character,” she said, leaning on the counter and eating the carrots remaining on the chopping board. “Dry sense of humor. Total badass.”</p><p>The implication being that Leah was, she supposed. This felt suspiciously like Anna was sucking up but she didn’t know why. “Send me a link and I’ll download a sample.”</p><p>They ate their meal on the couches in the living room, a casual setting Leah only allowed because, like Bran, she trusted Anna not to make a mess. After a short debate, they settled on the Taylor Swift documentary, Anna purporting to being a not-so-secret ‘Swifty’. Leah’s hold on popular culture was tenuous but even she knew some of the songs.</p><p>Midway through, Bran returned and stood behind the couch, watching a couple of minutes of the documentary before he went to fetch himself something to eat. “I’ll be in my office,” he called, to which Leah gave the vaguest noise of affirmation.</p><p>Just before midnight, they finished the documentary and cleared up. Anna had clearly been quite moved. Leah was – as ever, in these modern days – surprised about the public access to celebrity lives. <em>She</em> wasn’t as revealing about her own life to her friends as some celebrities were to the public. It mystified her.</p><p>“Would you do it? Go on TV and tell all like that?” Leah draped the dish cloth over the faucet.</p><p>“I’m not a public figure.”</p><p>“If you were?”</p><p>Anna winced. “I mean – probably not. But I can’t imagine the kind of pressure she was under. The intrusion of the media. Social media. From other celebrities. I guess there’s something to be said for setting the record straight, on your own terms.”</p><p>Leah thought about it. She supposed there were things in her life, things people thought of her, that she would have liked to set the record straight on if she could.</p><p>*</p><p>Bran was still in his office by the time Anna left and the door was closed so Leah knew better than to disturb him. She went through her usual nightly ablutions and then deliberated in the door between their rooms before settling for her own bed.</p><p>She scooped up her eReader and tucked herself in, finding herself immediately sucked into the sample of the novel Anna had shared with her and buying the book within the first three pages. Anna was right. She <em>did</em> like the lead character but equally it had a fast paced plot that was low on the long, meandering paragraphs that were a feature of novels before the Twentieth Century.</p><p>She was so absorbed that she barely noticed when Bran joined her, all but jumped when the mattress dipped.</p><p>“Maybe you should start a book club.”</p><p>She snorted at the very idea. She’d joined Anna’s quilting group once and nearly fell asleep. “Did you know Tamara was absolutely terrified of snakes?”</p><p>Bran did not. He’d brought his own book to bed and rested it on the covers. “I suppose it’s not unusual.”</p><p>She gave him a run-down of the foibles of the others. The worms made him smile and she noticed as he did so that his face had been very drawn before. Sad. She put her eReader down to give him her full attention.</p><p>“What about your favorite? Any amusing fallacies or is he living up to your exultant expectations still?”</p><p>“Still up there,” she admitted. She may have waxed lyrical about Bogdan’s capabilities more than once. “Grizzly and water buffalo.”</p><p>“Very sensible.<em>” </em>Bran picked up his book and she studied him for a moment. “What is it, Leah?”</p><p>“Do you want to talk about your evening?”</p><p>“Not particularly.”</p><p>She nodded and reached for her eReader. Then, for the first time, she thought to rephrase her question. “Do you think you <em>should</em> talk about your evening?”</p><p>Bran looked up. Not at her – but straight down the bed. “No one died. But someone will have to, soon.”</p><p>Ah. She waited a moment, to see if he would continue, but he merely turned the page of his book. Leah returned to her own eReader and they read in companionable silence for several minutes.</p><p>Suddenly, Bran put his book to one side with a snap. “So, it’s been a few days now. What do you want to do about your father?”</p><p>“Do?”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>“I wasn’t planning on ‘doing’ anything. My father and Patterson appear to be working together, possibly in some criminal enterprise,” she added, thinking of all the museum quality items in his house. “Patterson sent me the portrait as some kind of token, with no intention of harming me. My father only has property in Montana because he was using Sage to get information on me.” She shrugged. “Poetic, that.”</p><p>She pretended to read some more. Pretended to ignore Bran’s intense stare. He waited her out, far more patiently than she would him, and it became excruciating as it always did.</p><p>Leah sighed and put her device to one side. “What would you <em>like</em> me to do?”</p><p>“You truly have no intention of following this up.”</p><p>“I have successfully ignored my father for longer than I have known you, Bran. I don’t believe <em>in the slightest</em> what Patterson claims. To have had some kind of emotional turn-around after the loss of his third attempt to continue the family heritage is so unbelievably out of character I cannot begin to explain to you.”</p><p>His eyes narrowed. “Two centuries is a long time. People change.”</p><p>“Have you changed?” she asked tartly.</p><p>“I think so. <em>You</em> certainly have.”</p><p>She felt as if she was being accused of something. “I? How have <em>I</em> changed in the time that you have known me?” She could perhaps agree that the human Leah Oliver had once known was different to the woman she was now. But that was understandable. That was magic.</p><p>Bran’s smile was quick and bright and then just as quickly it disappeared, replaced with a dark look. “Trust me, you have changed. Even in the last few <em>years</em> you have changed.”</p><p>Feeling as if she was somehow being reprimanded for this, she tried to get to the meat of the matter rather than be distracted with his Cornick cryptics. “Are you trying to encourage me to <em>reconcile</em> with my father? Need I remind you what he did to me?”</p><p>“Reconcile, no. But he will loom large in your life until you face him head on. In our lives,” he amended, with emphasis.</p><p>Leah gritted her teeth, knowing he meant the pack. Their people. Bran didn’t understand. She thought of his mother, then, and perhaps he <em>did</em> understand in some ways. But unlike Bran, she had always been powerless. Utterly powerless.</p><p>She didn’t <em>want</em> to engage with her father. She wanted to steer well clear of him.</p><p>“Why don’t you think about it,” Bran suggested, turning off the bedside light to signal the conversation was over. He rolled onto his side, his back to her.</p><p>Leah lay, stewing, until she was sure Bran was asleep. Then she went to sleep in his bed.</p><p>*</p><p>“Are you having an argument?” Kara asked, a few days after her return from a Spring break spent being shuffled between her parents. She’d come upstairs to where Leah was unpacking her Spring wardrobe in her walk-in closet and was sitting, cross-legged, amongst a selection of shorts and light tops that needed an iron.</p><p>Leah was not unaware that the relationship between the Alpha pair was of great interest to some members of the pack. She was <em>also</em> aware that she served as a role model for Kara – Bran had been at pains to make this clear to Leah when the girl had joined the pack. She tried hard to be patient and not view Kara’s questions as intrusive but more of a chance to be instructive. Leah was not a natural teacher. “No. I’m just not doing what he wants, so he is annoyed with me.” And consequentially he was being quite <em>snippy</em> with her.</p><p>“Oh.” Kara was amused. “How’s that different from an argument?”</p><p>Leah thought about it. She shook out a wrinkled blouse and tossed it into the pile by Kara. “Well, there’s been no screaming yet.”</p><p>“Does Bran scream?” She seemed surprised, as if she couldn’t imagine Bran losing his temper in such a way. Everyone in the pack had seen him unleash his personal power, that of the wolf and their Alpha, of course, but he usually did so with a snarl, not with a raised voice.</p><p>“Every couple fights. And sometimes screams at each other.” She lifted her eyebrows because they’d certainly had some doozies. “It’s normal.”</p><p>Kara cringed. “I don’t think I’d like to be screamed at by Bran.”</p><p>“Well. It doesn’t bother me so much.” Both as the woman who was his mate and as a member of his pack. She did not fear Bran in the same way as the others, for Bran could not hurt her. He could scare her, power always did. She certainly did not like his disapproval, no, but if he screamed at her she would simply scream back. Oh, he could <em>order</em> her to obey and she would do it. He could unleash his sheer <em>Alpha-</em>ness on her. But even Bran did not like the repercussions of ordering his mate to do something against her will. Even if – in his words – it was for the greater good.</p><p>Kara stayed for lunch – tortellini soup, a new recipe from a blog Leah had come across – and then set off to see Asil, taking some books with her from Bran. Leah’s husband had added further fuel to Kara’s imaginings by purposefully focusing much of his conversation on Kara alone, giving Leah only politely distant smiles. </p><p>It was annoying, of course. He was annoying. Likely he thought the same about her, too.</p><p>Still. She tried not to be petty with him because it got her nowhere, just made her feel like a bad person. She ironed his Spring wardrobe just as she did her own. She left these items on his bed for him to sort into his own closet and then spent the rest of her afternoon reading the second book in the mystery series Anna had put her on to. There was a love interest, now, though the two characters were at the stage of disliking each other intensely which Leah had yet to decide if she found an entertaining frisson to the story or an unnecessary distraction.</p><p>She heard Bran leave as it got dark and five minutes after that her phone pinged, leaving her just enough time to be irritated that he had left the house without letting her knew where he was going. <em>Getting gas</em>, he had written.</p><p>Leah replied with the thumbs up emoji because she knew it would annoy him and then went downstairs to look at what she could pull together for dinner. There was no one else in the house with them, maybe because the friction between the two occupants was putting people off, so it was just a meal for two.</p><p>“Stir fry,” she announced, when Bran returned. She’d prepped most of the ingredients already. When he came into the kitchen, she smiled through any irritation she felt. “You get to choose your noodles.”</p><p>Bran studied the packets on the counter and then plumped for Udon. He had a frown line down the middle of his forehead. “I dinged the car.”</p><p>“The Audi?” It was new. “I’m sorry. The first is always the worst.”</p><p>He nodded and picked out a thin wedge of bell pepper from the stir fry ingredients, ate it. He was loitering with intent. “I’m bored of this argument.”</p><p>“I told Kara it wasn’t an argument.”</p><p>Bran sneered a little. “I suppose it’s not. More of a difference of opinion.” He ate a peanut.</p><p>“Mmm-hmm.” She poured some sesame oil into the wok and started heating it. Stir fry was fast. They didn’t talk as she added the strips of marinated chicken, the garlic, the ginger and Thai red pepper, then vegetables and the rest of the marinade sauce. He cooked the noodles and dropped them into the wok so she could stir everything together.</p><p>They ate at the kitchen table, Leah feeling as if she was carefully treading her way through a minefield. More than their ‘difference of opinion’ was bothering him.</p><p>“Is it the wildling?” she asked, gently. She wondered at the timeframe – whether it was days or weeks away.  </p><p>“Amongst other things.” He added more chili oil to his dish. “Your brother rang me this morning.”</p><p>“Oh?”</p><p>“Before you get annoyed, it was because I called him. He is also not intending to do anything about your father.” Leah muffled her snort of laughter into the back of her hand. Bran’s glare was sharp. “It’s not like you to avoid your problems.”</p><p>Leah gestured loosely. “I don’t see it as a problem. I know you do,” she hurried to say, remembering that this was a minefield and her husband was the mine. “My concern, from the beginning, was that you were his target. That somehow your power was appealing to him. That doesn’t seem to be the case, which as far as I see means our pack is not in danger.”</p><p>“Just you.” Bran twirled his fork around, not really eating, just playing with his food.</p><p>“And maybe not even me, if Patterson is to be believed.”</p><p>“But you don’t believe that. So now there is this unknown <em>risk</em> knowing where we live. Where you live.” He jabbed at his chest with a finger, a shimmer of gold crossing his eyes. “My mate is in danger and will do nothing to save herself. Do you not see how infuriating this is for me?”</p><p>Within Leah, her wolf raised her head, conveying <em>danger</em> as clearly as she non-verbally could. She leaned back in her chair slightly. As usual, she appeared to have completely missed the point of Bran’s frustration. And he was much angrier than she thought. “Your concern is for me.”</p><p>“<em>Yes.</em> What did you think—” Bran tossed down his fork, the noise making her jump. He wiped his mouth on his napkin and shoved his unfinished meal into the refrigerator. “I am too angry to speak to you,” he announced sharply, leaving the kitchen.</p><p>She heard his office door slam. “Oh dear,” she said to no one.</p><p>*</p><p>It was entirely possible for Bran to be too angry to engage with sensibly. Anna regularly crossed that line, perhaps not realizing that whilst she might emerge unscathed from the experience, others around her did not. No one enjoyed having Bran’s foul mood inflicted upon them.</p><p>So Leah left him a little while, knowing that he would be working on calming himself down, and called Oliver who picked up immediately. “Surprise,” he said, acknowledging that him answering his phone straight away was unusual.</p><p>“It is a surprise. Where are you?”</p><p>“Cleveland. Are you calling for Pattersons’ number? Bran already tried – I told him only if you asked me.”</p><p>“Ah.” Well that would have certainly ticked Bran off. “Then, yes.” Oliver rattled it off and she scrawled it down. “Have you contacted him?”</p><p>“Um. Not about our father.”</p><p>Leah tried not to laugh. “I see. A little flirting, perhaps?”</p><p>“<em>No</em>. I was interested in the coffee…”</p><p>She did laugh, then, as she could hear the smile in his voice, and dropped down into her bedroom chair, tucking her feet underneath her. “Sure you were. Did you exchange many purely coffee related messages?”</p><p>“One or two.” Oliver sighed. “I think entangling with any of our father’s chattel would be a mistake.”</p><p>“I completely agree. Will you take your own advice?”</p><p>“Probably not. So, what do you want to do?”</p><p>“Would it be insane to meet up with Father? The two of us, at least.” Not a chance in hell she would be doing that without another sorcerer present. And perhaps three or four of their strongest wolves.</p><p>“Two weeks ago I would have said yes. Now… I’m not so sure.” She heard Oliver move, the sound of drapes being pulled. “He’s here, in Cleveland. There’s a witch family here that he does business with from time to time.”</p><p>“What kind of business?”</p><p>“Spell books, mostly, rescued from the past. The witch hunts didn’t just decimate the population but most of their practicing material, as well.”</p><p>Leah did not like the sound of that.</p><p>“They’re white witches, don’t panic. Father wouldn’t be fool enough to fuel the black witch crusade.”</p><p>She still did not like the sound of it. Nor would Bran when she inevitably had to tell him. “Bran wants me to engage with Father. Find out what he really wants.”</p><p>“I suppose you would be in the unique position to be able to tell if he’s lying.”</p><p>They sat in silence for a little while, each lost to their own contemplations.</p><p>“Do you think I’ve changed?” she asked.</p><p>“Changed?”</p><p>“As a person.”</p><p>It was Oliver’s turn to laugh. “From day to night, little sister.”</p><p>This wasn’t helpful but then Oliver known her as she had been. A shivering slip of a girl, more prone to tears than vengeance. But Bran had never known that girl – so who was he to claim she had changed?</p><p>“What brought this on?”</p><p>“Oh, Bran, of course.” She sighed. “I’m finding this a very difficult decision. It goes against every instinct I have.”</p><p>“Look. I tell you what I’ll do. I’ll arrange to see Patterson—”</p><p>“Oh-oh! The hardship!”</p><p>“Not like that. I’ll book a meeting. There were a few things in that house it would be good to discuss with him.” This was said darkly, seriously. “I’ll feel him out.”</p><p>Leah pressed her lips together. Hard. “Uh-huh.”</p><p>“Thank you for not making the obvious joke,” Oliver said drily.</p><p>“Do you want any support when you meet him?”</p><p>“I think I can manage, thank you. But I shall take a few sensible precautions. I’ll let you know how I’m getting on.”</p><p>*</p><p>After finishing the call with her brother, she reheated Bran’s dinner and took it into his office. He was lying down in front of his fire, hands folded on his stomach, clearly meditating.</p><p>His eyes opened – gold and then hazel – when she entered.</p><p>“Here. You haven’t eaten much today.”</p><p>Bran sat up and crossed his legs, accepted the plate and fork. She dropped down next to him. It had not been so long ago that they had been here before and he had rustled around in her mind, opening her eyes to her father.</p><p>He ate, the fork chinking against the plate. After a minute or two of Leah watching him, he licked his lips. “I’m sorry for losing my temper.”</p><p>“No, I understand. I didn’t know where you were coming from. I thought you were just being more than usually controlling.” This made Bran snort. She inhaled deeply, releasing the tension that she seemed to be holding a great deal recently. “So, I spoke to Oliver. I have Pattersons number but first he is going to meet with him.”</p><p>“A date, perhaps?” Bran suggested, wryly.</p><p>Leah smiled. Her husband used the eyes in his head far better than most. “He says not.”</p><p>“Terrible idea.”</p><p>“<em>So </em>terrible.”</p><p>“He wouldn’t give me Pattersons number.” Bran scowled and scraped up the last of the vegetables. “It is an unusual situation for me to have someone who defers to you before me. I did not enjoy it.”</p><p>“Unusual for me too,” Leah said, pleased with the situation. Nice for Bran to have a taste of what it was like to be one of the little people. Not that she was really a little person, however. She had more power than most. “But he’s not really one of us. One of yours.”</p><p>“By extension he is. Do you trust him?”</p><p>She pictured her brother’s open face, eating fries in her car, trying to teach her to control the restless energy flow from her body. His desperate, pale face as he leaned through the window of her room before her second marriage. <em>Is he what you want? Did you consent? </em>And all those decades later. <em>I can take you away. Just tell me. </em>“Ah… I think so.”</p><p>His eyes were sharp. Critical. “You’ve never thought about this before?”</p><p>They were very different people. Bran analyzed everything. Everyone. Every moment. Right up until he made a decision. Leah, meanwhile, was more than content to let things that were not an immediate problem lie. Perhaps she had become lazy, having him for a mate to make her decisions for her. “He’s been so rarely in my life, Bran.”</p><p>He set aside the plate. “I would like him to be. Selfishly, of course, because I want to know more about sorcerers and he seems to have a vast network for information, both in the present and the past. And because I think it would make you happy.”</p><p>“I have enjoyed having him here in the house. Seeing him more.” She shuffled forward on her knees and, though it was not her usual way, not their usual way, leaned over and kissed his cheek with nothing more than gratitude. “Thank you.”</p><p>“Don’t thank me. If he made you unhappy, I would still want him to be part of our extended pack.”</p><p>She sat back. “Ugh. Couldn’t you have just left it?”</p><p>The corner of Bran’s mouth quirked. “You know who I am. Better than most,” he added.</p><p>She did. Shaking her head, Leah reached for his plate and left him to it.  </p><p>*</p><p>In the morning, she found Tag at the table in their kitchen, eating a pile of eggs with a liberal coating of ketchup, reading the local newspaper.</p><p>Leah had an up-and-down relationship with Tag. Like Devon, Tag was one of Bran’s oldest wolves, brought with him when he travelled from Europe after centuries of what truly sounded like carousing around the continent. Unlike Devon, Tag was still mostly there, provided he was kept carefully in the consistent environment of Aspen Creek and close to Bran.</p><p>When she had first arrived as Bran’s mate, Tag had been very kind to her. She had been a young werewolf, then, and had needed training in the ways of Bran’s wolves because Claus had run a very different pack to her new mate.</p><p>It had been Tag who had explained to her about Blue-Jay Woman.</p><p>To say Leah had been blind-sided would be an understatement. There had been no mention of a former, beloved mate when Bran had perfunctorily courted her. Certainly not one who had died only a handful of years before and left behind a child.</p><p>Charles – precocious, magical Charles, the apparent shining light in his heartbroken father’s eyes, who could do no wrong – had been a second blow.</p><p>She’d not agreed the bargain with Bran blindly, of course. She knew how old he was. Leah had expected him to have a past, just as she did, in fact. She just hadn’t expected it to be so <em>recent</em>. And for it to have meant that all the – she’d thought – ludicrous things he’d said to her prior to their bargain, that he would never <em>love</em> her, had been truths. Bran had given up on love. For the greater good, he claimed.</p><p>She had been stupid and naïve.</p><p>It had been a bad start, all in all, and Tag had done his best to try and smooth her way, for Bran had very little interest in her feelings on the matter. Once he’d secured her, once he’d caged his monster, Bran had all he needed from her. The bargain had been made.</p><p>Though decades had passed since that time, and Leah had grown used to Bran, grown into her role, Tag sometimes forgot like old wolves tended to. Sometimes treated her like that fresh, unknowing woman. Not so long ago, he had scolded her, badly, over her treatment of Mercedes – for like many he thought Bran could do no wrong and had refused to see her side of it – and it had fractured something in their relationship. She had disappointed him. And he had disappointed her.</p><p>So when she found him in the kitchen, she ignored him, turning her attention to the note from Bran, propped on the counter. <em>It’s time</em>, he had written. <em>I will be back tomorrow</em>.</p><p>Her heart sank. Her mate had gone, alone, to do his sad duty with his wildling. “Who is it?” she asked, a little croak in her voice. She had not asked Bran, she hadn’t felt he wanted to say, but Tag would know.</p><p>“Herman.”</p><p>She closed her eyes as she pictured his face. Thin – almost delicate, for a werewolf – with big gray eyes. <em>Madam Marrok</em>, he had called her, in his soft voice. His hands had shaken. He’d gone into the woods nearly a century before, further away than most, and taken Bran’s Bible with him. Bran visited with him, by himself, having stopped Leah in the 60s. “He’s started to look at you in a way I find discomfiting,” Bran had told her blandly.</p><p>She scrunched up the note with one hand.</p><p>“Thought I’d start on replacing the wainscot in the barn today.”</p><p>Leah glanced at Tag, still placidly eating his eggs, then looked out of the window. Apparently it was a fine Spring day. A day for outdoors work.</p><p>“I should start in the yard, then,” she said. She had a vegetable patch. Well, bigger than a patch, really. There were seedlings in the greenhouse that could be transplanted once she’d worked the soil and she had some potatoes and onion starts that could go down. She’d check the weather forecast – perhaps the tomatoes and eggplants, too.</p><p>The vegetable patch was an entirely unnecessary hobby of Leah’s, one she had kept from when it had been an entirely necessary part of their lives. But vegetables from her garden tasted better than the ones from the grocery store, even if that was just wishful thinking, and it gave her joy.</p><p>She and Tag worked their separate chores until lunchtime, when she prepared them a hearty meal which they ate on the decking outside. It was almost warm. She tilted her face to the sun. This was a pleasant time of year. Not preposterously cold, even for her werewolf body, and not the blistering heat of Summer that had her running for the cooler manufactured air of indoors. Just a gentle warmth.</p><p>Leah let Tag clear and she went back to her garden. She’d have the soil prepared and most of her cole crops and other vegetables she’d started in the greenhouse transplanted by the end of the day, then she could look at her summer vegetables. Montana had quite a short growing season so she usually started these indoors – all the pumpkins and cucumbers, even the sunflowers that Bran particularly liked – and would transplant them.</p><p>Juste came to help Tag with the pole barn after work, taking direction in his quiet way, and Leah did her duty, admiring the neat dark grey replacement. “Looks good,” she said with a smile. “Well done.”</p><p>They both clearly planned to stay for dinner and then Peggy dropped by as well, as her mate was away for work. Resentfully, Leah did her duty once more and called up the only other ‘single’ member of their pack, knowing that it would be what Bran would want. “I’ll bring Kara,” Asil said. Then, just as she was about to hang up, she heard him say quietly, “Thank you, Leah.”</p><p>The evening went in the direction it usually did – after dinner, Tag suggested a race to Arsenic Creek and suddenly clothes littered her back yard, including her own. She led her people up and out into the wilderness, racing on four paws, wild and free.</p><p>*</p><p>The weather was fine again the following day, so Leah spent it in the green house, sowing her summer vegetables and checking on the seedlings not hardy enough to transplant yet. She was in a good mood, had a little battery powered radio set to a station that played mostly pop music. Most of it was awful, Leah thought, but there were a couple of songs she turned the volume up for. </p><p>When a shadow fell in the doorway, she expected it to be Tag or one of the others, so when she lifted her head with an enquiring smile, her shock was two-fold. One shock was that it wasn’t anyone from the pack, the next was that it was someone utterly unexpected. Or perhaps unexpectedly expected.  </p><p>“Father,” she said.</p><p>He was a tall man. Taller than Oliver, even, and had broad shoulders from which fell, not the great coat of her memories but a smart cashmere thing. Prada, she thought with nonsensical attention to detail. His hair was still dark blonde, the waves carefully contained in a shorter, more contemporary cut. His eyes were big and blue, skin a light tan, as if he’d been in a sunnier climate for a few days. His mouth, a little too full for a man, was pressed in a cool smile.</p><p>“Patterson mentioned your surprise that I had not visited myself. I took from this that you had not explicitly worked me from your territory.”</p><p>Leah began to pull from the pack bonds. Within their territory, anyone nearby would make their way towards the house. Charles would be alerted. Asil. Bran, wherever he was, would feel it. “You are still not welcome here.”</p><p>Her father inclined his head. His eyes swept over the greenhouse. “You always did like the garden.”</p><p>She tried not to let the surprise show on her face, her lamentable tendency to blurt out her thoughts by non-verbal or verbal means. “I did.” Odd that he would remember it and she had forgotten it. She’d looked after flowers, as a child, and hid under the tables with her books. The small greenhouse had been her refuge.</p><p>To hand, Leah had a towel and a small fork. If she was quick, she could do him harm. She could go for the jugular straight away, bury the fork in his neck. He was blood and bone like they all were, after all.</p><p>“Werewolves. So bloodthirsty,” her father murmured, turning his back on her and walking from the greenhouse. “There’s a stone bench with a pretty view. Let us go and sit like civilized creatures.”</p><p>He walked away, leaving a shaken Leah, her fingers clenched around the trowel so rigidly that her bones felt fused. A rustle through the trees on her left and Tag emerged, flushed but not breathing hard. He had not been far at all. “What is it?” He scented in the doorway of the greenhouse and then stormed inside, looking under the tables. “Where is the danger?”</p><p>“My father is here.”</p><p>“Your father?” Tag’s head tilted to the side, the red dreadlocks slipping over his shoulder. “How?”</p><p>“It’s a long story. Can you get Charles? And… Bran?” Her cell phone was in her bedroom, in the house. She should call Oliver but knew he was with Patterson. It seemed like a trap. </p><p>“I’m instructed not to leave you,” Tag said, surprising her. It seemed it was the day for it. He took his battered old cell from his pocket. “I’ll ask Asil to find Bran and Charles to come here. Where is he? Your father?”</p><p>“He’s gone to sit on the bench. He wants to talk.”</p><p>As Tag made his calls, the urgency in his voice brokering no argument from first Charles and then Asil, Leah took off her gloves. She smoothed her trembling hands over her hair. She felt dirty. Untidy. She’d imagined meeting her father in her best clothes. Something that made her feel like she was wearing armor. Prada, perhaps. Like him. Not yesterday’s gardening clothes.</p><p>Under the table by the door, there was a small knife Velcro-ed to the wood. She had a few of them, dotted around her home. It made their house relatively unfriendly for children but then werewolves mostly were anyway. She detached the knife and then slid it up the long sleeve of her T-shirt.</p><p>“Charles is on his way but he’s twenty minutes out. He’s going to try to get in touch with someone called Oliver.” Tag followed her from the greenhouse and looked towards the figure, seated on the decorative stone bench across the yard. There was a pond there, much overgrown, and a sliver of a view through the trees. It was indeed a pretty view. “What do you want me to do?”</p><p>“Get a gun from the locker. Keep it on him.”</p><p>Tag nodded. “Not a happy family reunion then?”</p><p>“No.” </p><p>He put a heavy hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “I’ll be here.”</p><p>With Tag at her back, Charles on his way, and a knife on her person, Leah felt not necessarily more confident but at least as if she had more control over the situation. She ambled towards her father who, unlike any dominant wolf of her acquaintance, had his back to her, the flowing coat draped over the backless bench, his feet stretched out in front of him.</p><p>She sat far enough away on the bench that two people could have sat comfortably between them. “I presume you know Oliver is meeting with Patterson today.”</p><p>In much the same way as Leah did, her father tilted his face to the sun, smiling slightly. “I do.”</p><p>Leah gazed at him. He looked relaxed. She couldn’t believe it. “It was a distraction, then.”</p><p>“Let’s say it’s helpful, more than anything. If your brother came, tempers would be lost quickly. I am trying to avoid that.”</p><p>She heard Tag step back on the decking and take his position. She felt a little tightness ease. “What do you want?”</p><p>“To see you. To speak with you. That is all.”</p><p>It sounded like a truth but she knew it could not be. “What about? And why now?”</p><p>“Well, my daughter, it has taken a very long time to even <em>find</em> you. Your species keep a low profile. But necessity, of course. I understand that.”</p><p>She narrowed her eyes, lip curling at his use of ‘my daughter’. She was not his anything. “Patterson has been helping you look.”</p><p>“Yes. He has… a gift, shall we say, for finding things. A knack, it was once called. I believe there is more than just sorcerer blood in his heritage. A dab of fae, perhaps,” her father mused thoughtfully.</p><p>“He’s from–” Her tongue struggled with the name, unwilling to let it pass her lips once more, “Richard’s line.”</p><p>“Yes. But the fae I believe came from his mother. A far more interesting creature.”</p><p>A sour taste coated the back of Leah’s tongue and throat. She looked away from him. “He’s yours.”</p><p>“It’s a mutually beneficial relationship.”</p><p>Leah hoped Oliver decided to have nothing to do with him.</p><p>“I did not come here to speak of Henry. I see that you are settled. You have a fine home. There is a red-headed gentleman,” her father looked over his shoulder, “with a shiny weapon aimed at me, presumably in your defense. Your husband? Where is he?”</p><p>Leah was not inclined to respond. “You see all those things, yes, and what of it?”</p><p>“I thought you dead, for a long time. It astonished me to discover you were not. I understand you are involved in the werewolf hierarchy of this country, no less.” He smiled. It was almost proud.</p><p>Again, not a chance she was going to engage with that, either. Even if it made him <em>proud</em>.</p><p>“Certainly, from what I’m told, America has a more organized werewolf faction than elsewhere in the world.”</p><p>She felt a tingle of renewed fear. It was Bran then, that was where his interest lay. Not her. She was grateful she had such low expectations of her father that she could feel no disappointment. “You need to leave.” Leah rose to standing.</p><p>“I’ve said something that has upset you.” He narrowed his eyes, <em>her</em> eyes, and sighed<em>. </em>“My goodness, Leah, your face is as open as a book <em>still</em>.”</p><p>She glowered. “Go,” she said, pulling on Bran’s clout to spit out the word with power.</p><p>Her father stood, palms out. “All right, all right. It is enough that I have seen you. To know you are cared for.” He looked again to Tag, who had crept closer. In the distance, Leah heard the sound of Charles’s engine and now she could see Juste, in his wolf form, at the edge of the trees, hunkered low. Peggy and Anna, as well, waiting with ears pricked forwards, just visible enough to show they were a threat. “The troops are gathering, I see.”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>Jonathan Eldon surveyed Leah’s home once more. “You know, even in the daylight, I can see it. I mistook it for a barrier, initially. But it’s not, is it? Something else. I wonder what we created,” he murmured, half to himself. “Perhaps she was right…”</p><p>“Who was right?” Leah asked, knowing only too well that he was inspiring her curiosity deliberately and she was walking straight into his web.</p><p>“True sorcerers bear only male children,” he announced, as if this was something she would know. “You were a shock. To me. To your mother. Her dreadful family.”</p><p>Leah raised her eyebrows. “You said my mother was from a sorcerer bloodline.” Ergo, a female.</p><p>“Yes. Her uncle was one. Her father was not. By all precedents, you should have been born male.”</p><p>This seemed far-fetched, even with Leah’s tentative understanding of biology. Unless of course the manifestation of sorcery had nothing to do with biology. With genetics.</p><p>“I suppose it took me a long time to come around to the idea. When one is raised to believe something infallible, only to discover it is not—” He shrugged. “It is a challenge. It was a man’s world, once.”</p><p>“It still is,” Leah opined. At least, her world was.  </p><p>Charles rounded the corner of the house and Leah lifted a finger, knowing he would spot the subtle gesture. He stopped.</p><p>Her father regarded her seriously. “I have been looking for answers, for evidence of women in the bloodlines that I know of who have carried magic. Either it is deeply buried in time or, as I believe, any child who exhibited such magic was removed for being unnatural. For that is what they wanted to do with you, my daughter.” His hand lifted towards her, his palm cupped, and she flinched back.</p><p>For the briefest moment, Leah thought she saw hurt cross his face. Then it was gone and what replaced it she knew only too well. Avarice. “Whatever it is, it is apparent that it can manifest despite all the odds. A female sorcerer in a werewolf body. Extraordinary.”</p><p>Charles decided he’d had enough. “You need to leave,” he said, imbuing the words with a sense of command that only Alpha werewolves could. Even humans could hear it.</p><p>Unfazed, Leah’s father took in Charles with a faint smile. “This would be…? Not your husband, I think.”</p><p>Leah pressed her lips together. “Please go.”</p><p>“I am leaving. I can see my time is quite up.” Again, he held out his hands, this time showing his palms in Charles’s direction. To her he smiled. It was wide, it was warm, it was fatherly. “I can be patient, Leah. You have questions. And I am the only one who can answer them.”</p><p>She ground her teeth together and watched as Charles escorted her father to his car, toes curling in her boots, gripping the soles.   </p><p>Tag, who had followed behind, weapon in his hands, returned once the old Mercedes had clattered off down the drive. “Charles is tailing him until he’s out of our territory.”</p><p>She nodded. “Thank you,” she said, the sharpness in her tone an unfortunate side-effect of her fear.</p><p>Tag was used to her. He simply smiled. “Interesting fellow. What is he?”</p><p>“Sorcerer,” she said.</p><p>He nodded, accepting this. Very little shocked Tag. “Never heard of one of those.”</p><p>“No.” She licked her dry lips. “There aren’t that many left.”</p><p>*</p><p>Bran arrived home and, belying all past behavior, embraced her hard in front of their gathered pack. She sunk into him, hands gripping his jacket tightly. Her restless wolf purred in contentment. Her mate was here. Everything was right in the world.</p><p>She felt him kiss her neck, discretely hidden by her loose hair, and then he lifted his head, released her. He presented their audience with his friendly, man-of-the-people smile. “Are we having a party?”</p><p>More of the pack had made their way to the big house over the afternoon. Curious, worried, and questioning faces had stuck their head around the door. She’d been comforted by their presence, the noise of them all. It wasn’t always the way.</p><p>“We’re having a barbeque.”</p><p>“I hope there’ll be no bagpipes,” Bran replied promptly. There were a few chuckles, even as Tag grinned, utterly unrepentant.</p><p>“Thankfully, Tag left them at home,” Peggy said, a cheeky grin on her face. She had come, uncalled, ready to fight for her Alpha’s mate this afternoon. Leah would never forget it. “Leah, do you want us to set up the big table? Or outside?”</p><p>It was a little too cold still to be outside, more for the consideration of prolonging the heat of their food than for themselves. She decided on inside and there was a flurry of activity as the big table in the dining room was set up. Bran, perhaps also comforted by the bustling presence of their pack, went to help out in the kitchen preparing the sides that would accompany the barbeque food being cooked outside.</p><p>Hearing nothing but laughter, Leah took herself upstairs. Her cell phone had been worryingly silent. She had put in several calls to Oliver. Sent several messages. Emails.</p><p>Patterson’s number lay on her dresser, taunting her. She had promised herself that she would call it if Oliver did not get back to her before she went to bed. Damn the consequences.   </p><p>She was certain Oliver had walked into a trap that day but what level of threat that trap was she didn’t know.</p><p>“Dinner’s ready,” Bran said quietly, appearing in the doorway.</p><p>Sat on the end of her bed, Leah held out her phone. “He’s not replied to me.”</p><p>“Perhaps because his car has just pulled up out front.”</p><p>Gasping, Leah jumped up, made to run past him but her husband snagged her around her waist. “Wait,” he instructed, half laughing as she strained. “Tell me what happened with your father. Are you all right?”</p><p>“I am.” Then she did what she had wanted to do earlier but the unspoken boundaries he had set for public behavior had prevented her – she jumped up, throwing her arms around him and kissed him, pouring everything she felt into that kiss. Her relief that he was home. Her joy that Oliver was alive. Her love for Bran, their pack. This moment.  </p><p>Bran lifted her off her toes and kissed her back. And maybe he didn’t feel all the things she did but it felt like passion to her. Felt like he needed her as she needed him.</p><p>Perhaps this was not the kiss she would have given him in front of their people, after all.</p><p>“SORRY TO INTERRUPT!” yelled an unrepentantly loud voice up the stairs. Tag. There were splutters of laughter. “BUT OUR MEAL IS GETTING COLD.”</p><p>Leah jerked back. “Good grief.”</p><p>Bran put her down with a sigh and pulled her sweater down. “We will talk later.”</p><p>“Is that what that was?” But Leah nodded, then cupped his face, looked into his eyes. “How are you? Are you all right?” she asked. For she had not lost a loved one in the last twenty-four hours and he had. At his own hands.</p><p>His nod was taut. “I will be.” Bran’s thumb brushed her bottom lip, which felt tender and swollen. He dipped his head and kissed her again. “Best go downstairs, else someone will fetch us.” </p><p>She smirked and patted down his hair, ravaged by her fingers. “They wouldn’t dare.”</p><p>*</p><p>Leah had perhaps been wrong when she assumed Oliver hadn’t been hurt. Her brother had yet another black eye and was limping. She presented him with the cold compress and Tylenol, wincing sympathetically and wishing she’d thought to buy something more appropriate. Advil, perhaps. They really had no call for painkillers in this house. “Patterson?”</p><p>“Unbelievably sneaky left hook,” he claimed, pressing the ice pack to his eye. “Came out of nowhere.”</p><p>However, he sounded oddly pleased, as if a sneaky right hook was something to be proud of. It wasn’t as if she really needed more proof that they were related, Leah thought, but there it was.  </p><p>“Not a date, then.”</p><p>“I told you. It was <em>business</em>,” Oliver said. He grunted. “But after I got a call from your step-son, I lost my temper. He did not take my accusations well and the meeting devolved into fisticuffs, shall we say. I’m not sure he knew what Father was planning. What did he say?”</p><p>“Let’s eat. I’ll tell you and Bran together, after dinner.”</p><p>With delight, she introduced her brother to her pack. If she wasn’t already going to be the focus of the meal, she soon became it – with her brother sharing the spotlight. The rest of the pack were by no means as subtle as the Cornicks had been. Oliver was peppered with questions, which he answered as best he could, apparently finding the assault of the multitude of werewolf voices more difficult to withstand than Leah’s civilized immediate family.</p><p>Bran, on Leah’s left of the big square table that served for such meals, was quiet. She caught Charles’s, and Anna’s, eyes more than once. They were concerned.</p><p>She tilted her head away from the table, tucking it against his so her voice wouldn’t carry. “You can sneak away if you want to.”</p><p>“It’s fine.” He patted her knee and his eyes seemed to focus. “I’m enjoying myself, I promise.”</p><p>Afterwards, some of the pack taking off into the night as wolves, some lingering in the living area with a movie, Leah regaled her husband and brother with her meeting with her father. As was often her way in the kitchen, she took off her socks and stood on the focus, a habit more than a need, though certainly the day had made her feel antsy in the same way as her overspill of energy would do. It soothed her. And she needed to be soothed, needed something like the comforting routine.</p><p>Oliver obviously found this distracting.</p><p>“Can you see something?” Bran asked. He’d pulled a pint of his favorite ice-cream from the freezer and was taking small scoops from around the edge as it thawed.</p><p>Her brother nodded. “She sort of… sparkles.” He shook his head, as if to rid himself of the distraction. He pulled his black book from his pocket and started to flick through it. “I’ve never heard him explicitly say that a sorcerer can only have sons.” Oliver kept flicking, an increasingly deep frown line appearing on his forehead. “Hold on.”</p><p>Leah and Bran exchanged a look.</p><p>“Don’t tell me. You’ve never noticed,” Leah said drily.</p><p>“No. There <em>are</em> women. It’s just these are family trees of magical <em>lines</em>. Where once there was sorcerer blood. If what he’s saying is right— here, this one died out four centuries ago.” He turned the page and in one blink Bran went from one side of the counter to the other in his eagerness. Oliver even jerked back it was so quick. “The Gedding line. John Gedding was a sorcerer. He had two children – both boys. One son was a sorcerer. He had one son. But his <em>brother</em> had girls. Both lines died out. Plague, I think,” he added.</p><p>“Small sample,” Bran said thoughtfully, his finger tracing the black writing on the page.</p><p>“I’m worryingly concerned I shall find the same elsewhere, now.” Oliver took back the book and flicked through.</p><p>“I always thought it was just a turn of phrase. When he used to shout at me for being born wrong,” Leah murmured, unsticking one foot to rub her ankle, then replacing it. She sighed, feeling pleasantly lethargic, like she’d just taken a warm bath. She wished, faintly, that she could replicate this sensation for Bran. For when she knew the wolf was fighting him. Just to give him a break. Perhaps even now it would help, when he was tired and sad. She wished that very much indeed.</p><p>“You’re doing something different.” Oliver had stopped flicking through his book, instead was peering at her, trying to frown without interfering with his swollen eye.</p><p>Bran squinted at her. “This is tedious,” he muttered, shaking his head. He stuck his spoon more vigorously into his ice-cream.</p><p>“What are you doing?” Oliver eased his sore body off his stool and approached her warily.</p><p>“Nothing. What can you see?”</p><p>He reached out with his finger and gently poked the area around her. Something sizzled and he pulled his finger back, looked at it. “That’s very interesting.” He did it again and this time held still. The ends of his hair started to rise up, like he was being very slowly electrocuted. Oliver laughed. “It tickles.”</p><p>Bran sniffed. “The smell of ozone is increasing.”</p><p>Leah decided she didn’t like it. She lifted her feet – not without difficulty – and stepped to the side. Oliver’s hair immediately flattened. “I don’t think I was doing anything different. Truly.”</p><p>“Did you need to drain it away?”</p><p>She rubbed her arms. “Not really, it’s just habit. What could you see?”</p><p>“It was just a more dense—” He waved his hands around. “Shape. Hard to explain. Like going from 2D to 3D suddenly.” Oliver hopped back onto his stool, wriggling around to get comfortable.</p><p>“Oliver, would you mind getting me another spoon. I appear to have bent this one.”</p><p>Leah made to protest at her brother, who was injured and a guest, being asked to fetch like he was one of Bran’s minions, but she stopped when Oliver did so, hopping back off the stool and opening the cutlery drawer.</p><p>Bran bent the spoon back into place by hand, watching Oliver move freely. “Your limp has gone.”</p><p>Oliver made to deny it, put his hand to his hip and then stopped. “Huh.” He did a couple of squats. “It’s fine. A little ache but nothing like before.”</p><p>“Is his eye a different color too?” Leah asked in excitement, pushing herself up off the counter and tilting her brother’s face more towards the light. It wasn’t that first stage of inflamed red any more. She thought it was also less swollen.</p><p>Her husband agreed. “It’s more purple, edging out into green. Leah, why don’t you go back to doing whatever it was you were doing and let’s see if we’ve stumbled onto something interesting.”</p><p>Leah resumed her position, the connection starting once more. She felt the tug <em>downwards</em> as she always did and raised her eyebrows at Oliver. “Well?”</p><p>He had been trying to look at his reflection in the mirrored surface of the microwave but he turned to assess her with his experienced eye. He shook his head. “No. Not right.”</p><p>“What were you thinking, Leah? Just before your brother touched you.”</p><p>Leah tried to trace back her thoughts, a difficult task given the way her thinking process ricocheted from place to place at the moment. She’d been thinking about her father. Her mother. The possibility that her mother and her mother’s family had been intending to get rid of her. That instead of abandoning her to her fate, her father might have actually saved her life by bringing her forward to his present. That Bran was tired and sad and she wanted to help him.</p><p>Oliver always said of his sorcery that <em>intention</em> was mostly everything. Not the math. Not the equations. The intention. She closed her eyes.</p><p>She felt Oliver approach. This time, with her eyes closed, she could feel him in a way she hadn’t before. She felt rather than saw his finger enter her personal space. He muffled his giggle and she smiled reflexively and opened one eye. “Ah! It’s gone! I fixed you!” she yelped.</p><p>She looked towards Bran and then, inspired rather than careful, held out her hand. “Let’s see if it works on you.”</p><p>Her husband slid off his stool, pulling the spoon from his mouth. “I don’t think I’m broken.” But he took her hand and she pulled him close until they were chest to chest.</p><p>Bran let out a noise, not unlike the one her brother had made. “Well. I may not be able to see it, but I can certainly feel it.” He did giggle then, and it was definitely a giggle. And he squirmed in her arms, his face creased with helpless laughter. “Ah-hah, Leah, it’s too much.”</p><p>It was funny, so she held him tighter, and he let her, still giggling, the light returning to his eyes. She could feel the bubble of her love for him forming, the words and, yes, the intention. This time, she knew she couldn’t stop herself.</p><p>She sucked in a sharp breath and opened her mouth, already regretting it, but Bran got there first, pressing his lips to hers softly. He caught the exhale that would have been her declaration of devotion, his fingers tangling in her hair. “I know, Leah,” he whispered, mouth tender against hers. “I know, I know. You have no idea how much it means to me.”</p><p>“Oof. All right, I don’t need to see this. Come get me when you’ve wrapped this up. Better yet,” Oliver announced, flouncing from the kitchen, “let’s talk in the morning.”</p><p>*</p><p>Leah slept like the dead. Weirdly, so did Bran.</p><p>She got up once because the sunrise was blinding and they hadn’t closed the drapes. As she stumbled back to bed, she saw that Bran still had one sock on and she tugged this off, unable to let that lie, and he lifted his head. “Wassit?” he asked, utterly confused.</p><p>“Nothing. Go back to sleep.”</p><p>He nodded and did so, flopping back on the mattress. He was out in seconds. So was she, as soon as she had arranged his arm about her once more and her head hit the pillow.</p><p>A couple of hours later, Bran sat up and poked her awake. “You knocked him out.”</p><p>“What? I didn’t.” She didn’t know what he was talking about so she automatically denied it. She shoved hair out of her face and tried to focus. “Who’s him? What?”</p><p>Her husband grinned. “Morning. Great hair.”</p><p>She knuckled an eye and rolled over, then tried to fix the twist of her nightdress. “Can you not be complex so early? Or at all, actually,” she added, finally succeeding with her clothing. She checked the clock. It was just gone eight. Late for them. “Who did I knock out?”</p><p>Bran was mid-stretch, the really good kind clearly judging from the sound effects of his bones popping and his moan of relief. “Him. My,” he licked his lips, exhaled deeply, “monster.”</p><p>“Is that good or bad?”</p><p>“Don’t know, yet. But I think that’s the best night’s sleep I’ve had in a few hundred years.”</p><p>“You’re joking.”</p><p>“I’m not, actually.” Bran went into another stretch again, just as fulsome as the first. Then, inevitably, he rolled on top of her. “Let’s fool around.”</p><p>“<em>Please</em> let me brush my teeth,” she said, twisting her face to the side. “I’m begging you.”</p><p>He released her with a dramatic sigh. “Oh, go on then.”</p><p>Leah was not left alone. He followed her to the bathroom, attempting to undress her, kissing her neck, just generally groping whatever body part he could get hold of. It was both entertaining, arousing and annoying in equal measures.</p><p>She still had toothpaste in her mouth when he lost interest in delaying any longer, hoisting her up onto the basin and spreading her legs. “I hope this is fixed to the wall well,” she managed before he thrust inside her. She hit her head on the mirror as she arched her back. Her hand went into the soap dish.</p><p>“Sorry,” he said, not sounding remotely sorry.</p><p>The bathroom basin survived their energetic coupling, then she coaxed him into the shower for another round and finally downstairs for breakfast, where he conveyed his playfully good mood on Tag and Juste. Both had clearly stayed over as they were wearing the spare sweats Leah kept in the laundry room for emergencies. There was a pan of eggs on the stove and a plate of bacon – enough for several hungry werewolves. Bran headed straight for it, a starving man.</p><p>“Did you go for a run last night?” she asked.</p><p>“After you went to bed. We called up but no one answered.” Tag ended this with a wink, entirely mistaking the reason for this lack of communication. They had no doubt already been asleep.</p><p>“I had a really good night’s sleep,” Bran said, not for the last time that morning, filling his plate and grabbing cutlery from the drawer. He was humming.</p><p>Leah felt preposterously fond. Had she done this to him? Was this the result of her intention? Knocking his wolf out?</p><p>She made herself breakfast and listened to the talk about last night, then they helped bring Juste up to speed on the last few weeks of Leah’s family drama. As Tag had been witness to her conversation with her father, he filled in a few more observations for Bran, describing Leah’s father to a T.</p><p>As they were helping themselves to seconds, Oliver came in through the door that led out into the back yard, wiped his feet on the mat and went straight for the coffee pot as if he, too, was a frequent visitor to her kitchen like the rest of the pack. “Finally. I’d all but given up on you.”</p><p>“Good morning, Oliver,” her husband, his brother-in-law, chirruped. “How did you sleep?”</p><p>“Bran slept really well,” Tag said, deadpan.</p><p>“Best sleep of his life,” Juste added, reaching for some homemade apricot preserve.</p><p>Their Alpha waved his fork mock-threateningly at them as Leah grinned into her coffee. “Rude.”</p><p>This was too much for Oliver, who dismissed them all and looked beseechingly to Leah. His black eye was completely gone, she noted. “You should know, our Father has moved into the house in Great Falls.”</p><p>“Oh, there it goes,” Bran sighed, mourning the instantaneous loss of his good mood. He poured more hot sauce on his latest helping of bacon.</p><p>Leah’s own mood lowered dramatically. “How did you find this out?”</p><p>“Patterson called me,” he said, somewhat sheepishly. He stuck a finger into the neck of his collar, pulling it from his neck as if he was suddenly warm. The tattoo of a few months ago was all-but gone. “To apologize, amongst other things. Said telling me was tit for tat, whatever that means.”</p><p>She wondered what ‘amongst other things’ meant and then decided it was obvious. “It’s really not a good idea to involve yourself with him.”</p><p>He shrugged this off. “I’m a big boy.” Oliver helped himself to the last piece of bacon, which all three men at the table watched with vaguely predatory eyes. He seemed to realize this and froze with the piece half in his mouth. “Sorry. Should I make more?”</p><p>Tag rumbled to himself, Juste ate his toast and preserves with a frown and Bran took a big gulp of his coffee. “It’s fine,” Leah said, feeling sorry for her brother’s lack of experience with hungry werewolves. “What do you think it means? Him moving into the house?”</p><p>“What it looks like it means. He wants to be close to you.” Oliver picked up his coffee, washed down his pilfered bacon. “Sorry.”</p><p>Bran pushed his plate aside and rubbed his face vigorously. “Well, he’s too close. I shall have to put a watch on him.”</p><p>“Patterson,” Oliver began, slowly, as if he knew no one would like what he was going to say, not even himself, “is still convinced our father is just interested in knowing you.”</p><p>She was not convinced. Leah recalled the look of avarice on her father’s face. “Knowing me, or knowing what I can do? For him, no doubt.”</p><p>“Oh, no doubt. I don’t envy you.” Oliver drained his coffee and put the cup in the dishwasher. “It took me decades to convince him I wanted nothing to do with his plans. To this day, I still think he thinks it’s just a matter of time.”</p><p><em>I can be patient</em>, her father had said. His parting shot. Like Bran, he was very old.</p><p>Leah looked over at her mate, spreading butter on cold toast. She could be patient too. Very patient, as it turned out.</p><p>And sometimes, like she was beginning to feel with Bran, that patience paid off.</p><p>She chewed her bottom lip and nudged him. “What do you think?”</p><p>“You never have to see him again. If that’s what you want.” Bran took a mouthful of toast.</p><p>“You’ve changed your tune.”</p><p>“I don’t believe he wants to kill you. Now you’re <em>interesting</em> to him. It’s better, I believe.” He smiled beatifically. “Now we can wait and see what happens.”</p><p>“But you still want a watch put on him,” Tag reminded him.</p><p>“Oh, definitely. I’m not <em>stupid</em>.”</p><p>*</p><p>This time, Leah saw her brother off, though he was travelling by four wheels again. He took yet another banana from her fruit bowl, she loaned him a thermos of coffee and watched him pack up his meagre collection of things into his car. There was a suitcase in the back seat, another in the trunk, and more fast food wrappers than she thought was hygienic. She was beginning to think he lived out of that car.</p><p>“Ah, I have something for you.” Oliver reached into the passenger side and opened the dash. He presented her with a ring box. “I kept forgetting.”</p><p>It was – as the packaging indicated – a ring, very similar to his but set for a more delicate hand. It was solid gold with a gemstone the size of her little fingernail. It was clear, sparkling with a familiar effervescence. “Was this expensive?” she asked suspiciously.</p><p>“Not particularly. It’s a diamond but if it makes you feel any better, it was yours anyway.”</p><p>“Mine?”</p><p>Oliver smiled. “I stole all of your jewelry from Patterson’s house.”</p><p>“My— my jewelry? You mean from when I was married?” For she’d had some. Nothing her first husband had liked better than tricking her out in gaudy gems inappropriate for her youth. Probably where her distaste for fine jewelry had come from originally. She looked down at the ring with fresh eyes. She couldn’t even place where this particular stone had come from. “I’d forgotten.”</p><p>“Treat it like one of your focusses. If I’m right, it should allow you to be more mobile. My initial thinking was that you might need if you’re away from home for a time but having seen what you did last night, perhaps it could be useful in other ways. You’ll need to practice.”</p><p>Leah thought of her dopey husband, bouncing off the walls on his way to bed the previous night. She smiled and slid the ring onto her little finger where it winked at her. “I think I’ll enjoy that.”</p><p>He gave her forehead a kiss. “I’m going to do some investigating of my own, I think. Someone, somewhere, must know a little more about the females of our species and our father is not the only one who is capable of getting answers.”</p><p>She nodded and he climbed into his car, rolling down the window. “You’ll come back?” she asked, strangely shy.</p><p>“Of course.” Oliver looked behind her, at her house. “Your birthday’s in June, isn’t it? I’ll be back for that.”</p><p>“Oh.” Now was probably not the time to mention she had stopped celebrating her birthday decades ago. It would be churlish, even. “That would be lovely.”</p><p>He waved and started the engine, breathing out a sigh of relief when it caught. He began to reverse down the drive.</p><p>Leah continued to wave until he turned out of sight and then she stood, long after she could no longer hear his engine, staring into the distance. It felt like an end but equally rather like the beginning of something, too.</p><p>Of course, only time would tell what that beginning was. No matter. She had plenty of time.</p><p>- end - </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>The entire time this was in my Drafts it was titled 'Yer a wizard, Harry'.</p><p>And I am obviously well aware that Bran is a whole bunch of red flags and if this was Reddit, everyone would be telling Leah to dump him. But there we are, we work with the material we have.</p><p>Anyway, it's done. As usual, I wrapped up wondering... is there a plot to this? did anything actually happen? Or is it 60,000+ words of people chatting to each other?</p></blockquote></div></div>
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